International music industry trade group IFPI is applauding recommendations made in a new British report about "the potential hazards the Internet can pose to children." The Byron Report is being accepted and implemented by the British government, calling for new gaming review systems and having the British Department for Children Schools and Families and the Department for Culture Media and Sport "vowing to work with industry, schools and parents to ensure children and young people remain safe in the online world." Billboard also reports that the IFPI is planning its "own guide for parents and teachers informing them on how to obtain music safely and legally online."

The merits of commending the new report on Internet safety are obvious, so it is no surprise the IFPI would welcome it. At the same time, one has to wonder how illegal music downloading is connected to the fears of the violent nature of online games. Regardless, as Billboard notes, greater fears of identity theft and online fraud were pertinent in the report and it is possible to understand where fears of children and illegal downloading would come in.

Unfortunately, despite the merits and value in the Byron Report, the fact that the IFPI would applaud it so greatly only speaks to the lengths that trade group is willing to go to prohibit illegal downloading. With as much resistance as the IFPI is facing in a number of countries about having Internet providers turn over users that illegally download, the connection to fears based on children's access to the Internet makes sense because it markets the IFPI to consumers who might otherwise be unaware of their existence.

Billboard reported yesterday that the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, a global recording industry trade body based in London, has welcomed a new European Union court ruling that still forbids record labels from "demanding that telecom companies hand over the names and addresses of people suspected of illegal file sharing."

This contradictory stance is a reaction to the ruling's assertion that "EU countries could introduce their own rules to oblige ISPs to hand over such personal data," and comes only a few days after it announced that illegal file-sharing is outpacing legal means by 20-to-1.

The ruling the IFPI welcomed revolved around Spanish telecommunication company Telefonica SA's "right to refuse to disclose details that would identify who had used peer-to-peer file-sharing application Kazaa to illegally swap material owned by members of IFPI-affiliated Spanish labels body Promusicae."