Tag: ISP liability

European Parliament approves the DSM Copyright Directive Proposal

IPlens1 Comment

In yesterday’s session, the European Parliament approved the proposed Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market [see our previous comments here, here, and a more detailed position paper, here]. MEPs voted 438-226 with 39 abstentions.

Here is the text passed – a compromise solution that slightly changes from the previous version rejected by the European Parliament back in July.

Among the most controversial provisions:

  • the text and data mining (TDM) exception has been confirmed in its original structure (limited to research organizations). The new version adds an optional additional TDM exception (Article 3a) that applies in favor of lawful users except such TDM usage has been expressly reserved by the right holder.
  • the ancillary right for press publishers (art. 11) has been slightly amended:

1. Member States shall provide publishers of press publications with the rights provided for in Article 2 and Article 3(2) of Directive 2001/29/EC so that they may obtain fair and proportionate remuneration for the digital use of  their press publications by information society service providers.

1a. The rights referred to in paragraph 1 shall not prevent legitimate private and non-commercial use of press publications by individual users.

[…]

2a. The rights referred to in paragraph 1 shall not extend to mere hyperlinks which are accompanied by individual words.

4. The rights referred to in paragraph 1 shall expire 5 years after the publication of the press publication. This term shall be calculated from the first day of January of the year following the date of publication. The right referred to in paragraph 1 shall not apply with retroactive effect.

Recital 33 specifies that “the protection shall also not extend to factual information which is reported in journalistic articles from a press publication and will therefore not prevent anyone from reporting such factual information”. This seems a bit in contrast with the provision of 2a that allows reporting only “individual words”.

  • As regards article 13, filtering obligations have been only apparently removed, since in case right holders are not happy to license their contents, UGC platforms shall cooperate to block such contents

1. Without prejudice to Article 3(1) and (2) of Directive 2001/29/EC, online content sharing service providers perform an act of communication to the public.  They shall therefore conclude fair and appropriate licensing agreements with right holders.

2. Licensing agreements which are concluded by online content sharing service providers with right holders for the acts of communication referred to in paragraph 1, shall cover the liability for works uploaded by the users of such online content sharing services in line with the terms and conditions set out in the licensing agreement, provided that such users do not act for commercial purposes.

2a. Member States shall provide that where right holders do not wish to conclude licensing agreements, online content sharing service providers and right holders shall cooperate in good faith in order to ensure that unauthorised protected works or other subject matter are not available on their services. Cooperation between online content service providers and right holders shall not lead to preventing the availability of non-infringing works or other protected subject matter, including those covered by an exception or limitation to copyright. […]

Article 2(4b) sets out a very complex definition of the UGC platforms affected, taking into account the CJEU case law: “‘online content sharing service provider’ means a provider of an information society service one of the main purposes of which is to store and give access to the public to a significant amount of copyright protected works or other protected subject-matter uploaded by its users, which the service optimises and promotes for profit making purposes“. Recital 37a adds that this is “including amongst others displaying, tagging, curating, sequencing, the uploaded works or other subject-matter, irrespective of the means used therefor, and therefore act in an active way.” It then excludes from the definition of online content sharing service providers microenterprises and small sized enterprises, as well as service non-commercial providers such as online encyclopaedia or providers of online services where the content is uploaded with the authorisation of all right holders concerned, such as educational or scientific repositories.

Article 12a protecting sport event organizers has been introduced at a later stage (with no impact assessment).

This compromized version shows some slight improvements, despite the original defects of the Proposal still remain unsolved. Now the trilogue negotiations amongst the Parliament, the Council and the Commission will start.

Francesco Banterle

 

The Court of Rome reintroduces the notion of “active hosting provider”: new uncertainties on the ISP liability rules

IPlens3 Comments

By a decision published on 27 April 2016, the Court of Rome held TMFT Enterprises LLC- Break Media (“Break Media“) liable for copyright infringement for the unauthorized streaming of audiovisual content owned by Reti Televisive Italiane S.p.A. (“RTI“).

Break Media argued that it was a passive hosting provider because it merely stored information at the request of a recipient of its service. Pursuant to Article 14 of the E-Commerce Directive 2000/31/CE, as implemented in Italy by Legislative Decree 70/2003, hosting providers are not liable for stored information if they are unaware of its illegal nature. Moreover they are not required to remove illegal content unless ordered to do so by the competent public authorities.

Further, the provider outlined that the notice sent by RTI was generic, failing to report the location (URL) where the infringing content were placed. Therefore, it imposed no legal obligation to inform the competent authorities under Article 17 of the Directive and no liability for contributory copyright infringement could be found.

In addressing the hosting provider’s arguments, the Court of Rome found the website owner to be liable.

In line with the previous Italian case law (cf. Court of Rome, October 20 2011, VVBcom.Limited and Choopa LLC; Court of Milan May 19 2011, RTI v Yahoo! Italia and Court of Milano, January 20 2011, RTI v ItaliaOnline Srl) the Court of Rome applied the distinction between active and passive hosting providers, based on the analysis of the activities performed by the entity in question.

The decision held that if a hosting provider is directly involved in the website’s operations by allowing users to upload videos and other content, it is deemed to manage the information and content that its users provide. In this case, the ISP would be regarded as an active hosting provider, subject to a duty to remove illicit content if so requested by the rights’ holder.

On the contrary, if a hosting provider merely provides storage and connectivity to specific websites, and plays no active role in managing information online, it should be regarded as a passive hosting provider, which is not jointly liable with website owner for copyright infringement unless it fails to comply with a removal order issued by the competent administrative or judicial authorities or is aware of the illicit nature of the content on the hosted website and fail to alert the competent authorities.

According to the Court, Break Media was an “active hosting” of media content. Indeed, the activity of Break Media was not limited to the activation of technical procedures for enabling the content to be loaded to the platform (“passive hosting”), but provided a complex service of advertising exploitation of the content.

As a result, the liability exemptions established by Article 14 of the E-Commerce Directive were not applicable.

Although RTI’s notice demanding the removal of the infringing materials from the platform did not identify the specific location of the content to be removed, the defendant was effectively aware of the infringing nature of the content. This knolwedge was deemed enough in order to affirm the provider’s liability.

Based on the above, the Court condemned the provider to pay damages for € 115,000, approximately corresponding to € 1.300 for each minute of unauthorized publication.

Reintroducing principles affirmed by the aforementioned case law, the current decision distanced from the decision of the European Court of Justice on the SABAM case (24 November 2011 in Case C‑70/10, Scarlet Extended SA v. SABAM et al.) according to which national authorities are prohibited from adopting measures which would require an ISP to carry out general monitoring of the information that it transmits on its network.

Based on the SABAM jurisprudence, the Court of Appeal of Milan, January 7 2015, overturning the Court of Milan first instance decision in the case RTI v. Yahoo! Italia, took the view that the distinction between ‘active’ and ‘passive’ hosting providers should be regarded as misleading, being envisaged in neither the E-Commerce Directive nor in the Italian implementing Legislative Decree 70/2003. Consequently the fact that an ISP provides for services to organize contents published by its users should not change its role.

The issue provides matter of clarification for the Supreme Court.

For further comments look at the interesting analysis carried out by Maria Letizia Bixio on dimt.it

Jacopo Ciani

Court of Rome, 27 April 2016, Reti Televisive Italiane S.p.A. v. TMFT Enterprises LLC- Break Media