The European Union's top court upheld Spanish telco Telefonica's right not to share the identities of peer-to-peer music file-sharers with the music industry. The case stemmed from Telefonica's refusal to reveal personal information of customers who had used Kazaa to share copyrighted music.
It remains to be seen how significant a ruling this will be, as the court noted that individual EU nations could over-rule the decision with new legislation of their own. Meanwhile, in the U.S., some telcos already have said they would willingly share identities of file-sharers with the music industry.
For more:
- read this Associated Press story at The New York Times
Related articles:
- NBC set to use P2P Article