©-LAW

As this blog  reported , on 14 June last the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued its much-awaited  judgment  in  Stichting Brein v Ziggo BV and XS4All Internet BV , C- 610/15 (the  ‘ Pirate Bay ’ case). There, the Court developed further its construction of the right of communication to the public within Article 3(1) of the  InfoSoc Directive , and clarified under what conditions the operators of an unlicensed online file-sharing platform are liable for copyright infringement. The CJEU judgment builds upon the earlier Opinion of Advocate General (AG) Szpunar in the same case  [reported  here ] , yet goes beyond it. This is notably so with regard to the consideration of the subjective element (knowledge) of the operators of an online platform making available copyright content. Unlike AG Szpunar, the Court did not refer liability only to situations in which the operators of an online platform have acquired  ac...

Is there a communication to the public within the meaning of Article 3(1) of the  InfoSoc Directive  by the operator of a website  [The Pirate Bay, TPB] , if no protected works are available on that website, but there is a system therein by means of which metadata on protected works is indexed and categorised for users, so that these can trace and upload and download the protected works? Does Article 8(3) of the InfoSoc Directive allow the issuing of an injunction against an ISP ordering it to block access for its users to an indexing site like The Pirate Bay? These were the important questions that the  Dutch Supreme Court (Hoge Raad der Nederlanden) had referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in   Stichting Brein v Ziggo , C-610/15   (also known as   The Pirate Bay   case). The AG Opinion In his   Opinion   in February last   [commented   here ,  here , and to some exte...