Art. 8(3) InfoSoc – Tech Notes

Posted in Art. 11 EnforD, Art. 12 EcomD, Art. 8(3) InfoSoc, BGH, CJEU, disconnecting injunctions, injunctions, safe harbours

AG Speaks Out On Accountability For Third Party Infringements Commited Via One’s Open WiFi

As many readers surely know by now, the much awaited Opinion of the Advocate General, Maciej Szpunar, in McFadden C-414/14 case has been released this week. To my great surprise, it is one of the best opinions on the E-Commerce Directive any member of the Court has ever produced (yes, even better than Maduro’s Google France

Posted in Art. 11 EnforD, Art. 8(3) InfoSoc, website blocking

BGH Accepts Website Blocking Injunctions

Hutko
posted on November 29, 2015April 6, 2021
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Just on this Thursday, the German Federal Supreme Court issued a press release informing that it has decided two long-excepted website blocking cases (I ZR 3/14, I ZR 174/14). Although we still have to wait couple of months for the text of the decision, there are several interesting aspects that are clear already: First, the

Posted in Art. 8(3) InfoSoc, civil society, CJEU

Why Open WiFi is Endangered in Europe? And Why it Matters? An Open Letter

Technology that helps to save human lives is now endangered by the copyright enforcement. In World Disasters Report 2013, the Red Cross celebrated an innovation developed by Dr. Paul Gardner-Stephen from Flinders University. His invention was designed to ease decentralized communications between individuals in absence of any usual connectivity. This radically helps to improve on-the-ground

New Paper On Novel Type of Injunctions Against Intermediaries

The readers interested in questions of intermediary liability, injunctions and online enforcement might be interested in a new paper authored by me and my friend Miquel Peguera. It is a substantially revised version of a working paper that was previously made available on SSRN in July this year. Since the copyright policy of the journal

#CETA: Should Canadian Internet Intermediaries Worry?

The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) is a proposed free trade agreement between Canada and the European Union. It is yet another alphabet soup that was cooked by our dear policy makers without first asking the public if it is hungry for any change of intellectual property protection/enforcement. As most of the other alphabet

Austrian Supreme Court Confirms Open-Ended Website Blocking Injunctions [UPC Telekabel Wien]

Last Thursday, the Austrian Supreme Court (OGH) issued the decision (OGH, 4 Ob 71/14s) in the proceedings that gave rise to the UPC Telekabel C-314/12 reference before the Court of Justice of the European Union. OGH confirmed the lower court decision, which granted an open-ended website blocking injunction against the biggest Austrian ISP. Although the

Posted in Art. 11 EnforD, Art. 8(3) InfoSoc, CJEU, website blocking, webstreaming

CJEU Allowed Website Blocking Injunctions With Some Reservations

So the CJEU finally issued its UPC Telekabel Wien C-314/12 decision. It contains several good points, but also some missed opportunities (the rejections of a need of specific measures is quite a disappointment), and black-box type of issues, where only the time will tell. But before I get to the ruling, it is very interesting

Spanish Court Issued The First Disconnecting Injunction Against a Single Access Provider

A good friend, Miquel Peguera from Spanish Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, just reported what is probably the first private litigation, where an access provider was sued to disconnect its subscribers from the Internet. Although some Nordic countries already earlier reported cases where access providers were sued to disconnect different providers of allegedly infringing services, Promusicae

AG: Website Blocking Is Compatible With The Union Law

Advocate General Pedro Cruz Villalón just published his opinion in UPC Telekabel Wien C‑314/12 case. He concludes that in principle website blocking is permissible injunction against an innocent intermediary. Because the opinion is not yet available in English, I summarize below only some points, that I found to be the most important: § 59: the

Are Banks Required to Disclose the Indentity of their Customers to Copyright Holders?

FutureOfCopyright reports very interesting recent Dutch copyright case – BREIN v. ING (Case No. C/13/539327). Local anti-piracy group BREIN sued well known bank and insurance company, ING, for disclosure of identity and bank transfers of one of it’s customers, who is a domain name holder of a website (largest Usenet community in the Netherlands with