As far as I understand it, this still means that the copyright mafia needs a court order to get the info. The EU case was about whether or not a court can give

As far as I understand it, this still means that the copyright mafia needs a court order to get the info. The EU case was about whether or not a court can give such an order at all. And the answer is, yes they can, if the law ensures a decent balance between privacy and copyright protection. Even though I would have loved to see the EU court rule otherwise, this still constitutes due process, not the total circumvention of the judicial system the copyright mafia is trying to achieve. As long as the Swedish courts demand solid evidence of copyright violations from a given IP address, I don't see a big problem here. Of course then we get to the question of proving who was behind that address when the alleged violation took place.... Edit: Apparently there is a legal twist here that Torrentfreak doesn't report: the only reason why the ISP still has that data is because it was stored under the EU's telecommunications directives. These where intended to support law enforcement in fighting serious crimes (the usual terrorism and child porn excuse), and politicians in several countries have sold this to the public with the assurance that access to that data it could not be used for any other purpose. This has now been exposed as a lie, which does make this big news that could have major consequences in the whole of the EU, exposing several government as having mislead parliament and the voters about the reach of these laws. (Which in turn is nice timing, short before the vote on ACTA which comes with similar "assurances" and promises...)