©-LAW

Kat blocking Earlier this week, the High Court of England and Wales issued two website blocking orders, which set new precedent and are the expression of a further development in the rich UK website blocking jurisprudence.  The orders, which were issued by Miles J further to applications made by record labels that are members of  BPI , are the first orders ever granted in the UK to block access to, respectively, a cyberlocker and a number of streamripping sites/app. The decisions are also interesting from a broader, EU perspective, in that the judge considered that the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) is unlikely to follow the position adopted by Advocate General (AG) Saugmandsgaard Øe in his 2020  Opinion , when it decides  YouTube/Cyando , C-682/18 and C-683/18  [Katpost  here ]. Capitol Records and Others v BT and Others : cyberlocker operators The  first order  was made further to an application by record companies, which are memb...

Blocking application Website blocking orders in IP cases (mostly, though not solely, in relation to copyright-infringing websites) are routinely granted in several jurisdictions, whether in Europe or third countries. The availability of such relief has been established in case law, administrative frameworks and academic studies alike. The Court of Justice of the European Union ('CJEU') expressly acknowledged the compatibility of such a remedy with EU law in its 2014 decision in  UPC Telekabel . Also the European Court of Human Rights  recently found  that, although it is necessary that this particular remedy is available within a balanced and carefully drafted legislative framework which contains a robust and articulated set of safeguards against abuse, website blocking orders are not  per se  contrary to the provision in  Article 10 ECHR . Over time, courts and other authorities (including administrative authorities in certain EU Member States) have dealt ...

The ECtHR Earlier this week, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) had the opportunity to assess website blocking from the perspective of freedom of expression under Article 10 of the  European Convention on Human Rights   (ECHR) in its  judgment in  Vladimir Kharitonov v Russia   [see  here  and  here  for the commentaries of two of the third-party interveners in the case] . Background The applicant, Mr Kharitonov, is the owner and administrator of the website Electronic Publishing News (http://www.digital-books.ru), which features a compilation of news, articles and reviews about electronic publishing. The website is hosted by DreamHost, a service which hosts multiple websites, all with the same IP address but different domain names. In late 2012, the applicant became aware that access to his website had been blocked by a number of Russian ISPs as a result of an order of the Russian telecoms regulator (Roskomnadzo...

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...