"The Court points out that the present reference for a preliminary ruling raises the question of the need to reconcile the requirements of the protection of different fundamental rights, namely the right to respect for private life on the one hand and the rights to protection of property and to an effective remedy on the other," the ruling reads.

This was the outcome of the a lawsuit between Spanish music organization Promusicae and Spanish ISP Telefónica. The latter refused to hand over the account details of several of its users who were suspected of sharing copyrighted content over the Kazaa p2p network.

Still, the Court does point out that is up to each of the member states to enact laws as they see best fit:

"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 the directives, but 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."

In translation, this means that copyright defenders must continue their lobbying activity all around Europe.