CJEU case C-275/06 Promusicae – CJEU Judgment (European Union, 2008)

Reference for a preliminary ruling by the Juzgado de lo Mercantil No. 5 de Madrid. Telefonica had refused to disclose to Promusicae, an NPO acting on behalf of its members who are holders of intellectual property rights, personal data relating to users of the internet who accessed the KaZaA file exchange program and shared files of recordings of Promusicae's members, by means of connections provided by Telefonica. Promusicae wanted to bring civil actions against those persons. Question referred: Whether EU law permits Member States to limit the duty of operators of telecom networks to supply traffic data. Directive 2000/31/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2000 on certain legal aspects of information society services, in particular electronic commerce, in the Internal Market (‘Directive on electronic commerce’), Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society, Directive 2004/48/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on the enforcement of intellectual property rights, and Directive 2002/58/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 July 2002 concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector (Directive on privacy and electronic communications) do not require the Member States to lay down, in a situation such as that in the main proceedings, an obligation to communicate personal data in order to ensure effective protection of copyright in the context of civil proceedings. However, Community law requires that, when transposing those directives, the Member States take care to rely on an interpretation of them which allows a fair balance to be struck between the various fundamental rights protected by the Community legal order. Further, when implementing the measures transposing those directives, the authorities and courts of the Member States must not only interpret their national law in a manner consistent with those directives but also make sure that they do not rely on an interpretation of them which would be in conflict with those fundamental rights or with the other general principles of Community law, such as the principle of proportionality.