The Right to Privacy and the Right to Intellectual Property in Internet: the Promusicae Case, a Significant Judgement of the European Court of Justice

Abstract

The difficult conciliation between the protection of the right to respect for private life, specially the confidentiality of personal data, and the rights to protection of copyright and to an effective remedy is the key issue decided by the Judgment of the Court of Justice in Case C-275/06, Promusicae. In order to safeguard other persons’ rights, the Court approves of limits to the privacy and these limits are sanctioned to damage the confidentiality of personal data, generated by the traffic in the electronic communications. In our opinion, in spite of the Court’s praiseworthy efforts to balancing the rights concerned, the judgement creates an instrument that entails a danger for freedom.