European Court of Justice, LSG v. Tele2, C-557/07, February 19, 2009

Performing rights organization LSG-Gesellschaft zur Wahrnehmung von Leistungsschutzrechten ("LSG") asked Tele2 to disclose users’ temporary IP addresses as personal traffic data, for the purpose of civil proceedings for alleged infringements of their exclusive copyrights. The ECJ relied its reasoning heavily on the Promusicae case and stated that: (1) Access providers which merely provide users with Internet access, without offering other services or exercising any control over the services provided to users, must be regarded as intermediaries under Article 8(3) of Directive 2001/29; (2) under the principle of proportionality, ISPs’ duty of disclosure gives way to users’ privacy rights in this case, where temporary IP addresses must not be stored for the purpose of civil litigations in copyright infringement cases.