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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 ...

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...

As  reported by The IPKat , earlier this week, like the European Parliament, also the Council adopted  the latest version  of the the Directive on copyright in the Digital Single Market (DSM Directive). One of the seemingly most complex -if nothing else, due to its length - provisions is what is now Article 17 (formerly, Article 13) of the DSM Directive, on "Use of protected content by online content-sharing service providers". The final text reads as follows: 1.  Member States shall provide that an online content-sharing service provider  [as defined in Article 2(6)]  performs an act of communication to the public or an act of making available to the public for the purposes of this Directive when it gives the public access to copyright-protected works or other protected subject matter uploaded by its users. An online content-sharing service provider shall therefore obtain an authorisation from the rightholders referred to in Art...

A change or just a clarification? As  reported  by The IPKat, earlier this week the European Parliament adopted  the latest version  of the new Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (DSM Directive). The IPKat will now run a series of posts discussing some of the key aspects of this new instrument which, following publication in the Official Journal of the EU, will need to be transposed by EU Member States within 2 years. Today I begin with a provision or, rather, a recital that, at least in certain respects, makes national transpositions somewhat redundant. It relates to the 'value gap' provision in what is now Article 17 of the Directive (formerly Article 13). Article 17(1) states: Member States shall provide that an online content-sharing service provider performs an act of communication to the public or an act of making available to the public for the purposes of this Directive when it gives the public access to cop...

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...