©-LAW

  On 26 April 2022, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivered its long-awaited judgment in   Poland v European Parliament and Council  (C-401/19) . The Court held Article 17 of the   DSM Directive   compatible with freedom of expression and information under Article 11 of the   EU Charter of Fundamental Rights . In so doing, it rejected the request of the Republic of Poland to annul said provision. The Court also noted how currently no valid alternatives appear to exist to the use of automatic recognition and filtering tools in order to comply with the obligations under Article 17(4)(b)-(c) (para 54). The judgment considers that the liability regime established under Article 17(4) represents a restriction on freedom of expression/information (para 58). Nevertheless such a restriction is not undue. Internal safeguards are provided, of which six key ones are identified (see paras 85-98). Member States are required to consider such safeguards...

Also The IPKat has a  Facebook page (not used for libellous and defamatory comments  alas  though)  When it comes to content removal in the context of an injunction, how is this to be done in order to comply with the prohibition of a general monitoring obligation, as per Article 15 of the  E-commerce Directive ?  This, in a nutshell, is the issue at stake in  Facebook , C-18/18 , a referral for a preliminary ruling from the Austrian Supreme Court made in the context of national proceedings concerning defamatory comments published on Facebook.  Yesterday, Advocate General (AG) Szpunar delivered his  Opinion , which opens with a quote from  The Social Network  (the film about the beginning of Facebook): “The internet’s not written in pencil, it’s written in ink”. Indeed, as the AG effectively summed up, this case concerns:  whether a host which operates an online social network platform may be required ...

As readers who have been following the discourse around the  draft Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market   [Katposts  here ]  will know, a few days ago the closed-door trilogue negotiations encountered a major obstacle, due to disagreement over one of the most debated provisions in this proposed piece of legislation: Article 13, also known as the 'value gap' or 'transfer of value' proposal  [Katposts  here ] .  While France has supported the idea that the obligations within Article 13 should be generally applicable, Germany has advanced the view that an exemption should be instead available to undertakings with annual turnovers below a certain threshold (EUR 20 million). Concept of 'value gap' Article 13 is a provision which, in the original intention of the EU Commission, would serve to remedy what has come to be known in jargon as the ‘value gap’ or ‘transfer of value’.  This concept refers...

Does a blocking injunction against an intermediary only concern the domain names indicated in the relevant order or can it be also considered as encompassing future infringements committed through other domain names? This is the question that the Milan Court of First Instance (Tribunale di Milano) had to address in the context of interim proceedings between publisher Mondadori and a number of major Italian internet access providers (ISPs). It provided an interesting response in two twin decisions  [available  here ]  issued last June and which the IPKat has learned about thanks to Katfriend  Valentina Borgese . Background In 2017 publisher Mondadori requested the Milan Court of First Instance to issue an interim injunction against a number of major Italian internet access providers (ISPs) consisting of an order to adopt the most appropriate measures to block access to a platform and all the different domain names ( alias ) under which it o...