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."
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