DSM Directive Series #5: Does the DSM Directive mean the same thing in all language versions? The case of 'best efforts' in Article 17(4)(a)
Bruno made his 'best efforts' to stick to his diet ... A couple of days ago, The IPKat posted about a (gross) Italian mistranslation of Article 17 of the DSM Directive 2019/790 (formerly known as Article 13), which seems to require online content sharing service providers (OCSSPs) to prevent the availability of all unlicensed subject matter, irrespective of whether it is infringing or not. I have been informed that this error will be corrected soon, as it is clearly an incorrect translation of the adopted text. As a follow-up to this, I took a closer look at the Italian translation of Article 17, and was a bit surprised when I saw that the phrase 'best efforts' in Article 17(4)(a) had not been translated as 'migliori sforzi' but rather as 'massimi sforzi'. I shall try and clarify what I mean. If we look at the English version of the DSM Directive, we see that a softer regime is in place for those OCSSPs who, t...