Source: https://elawnora.blogspot.com/2018/05/
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 08:53:50+00:00

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After months of discussion, yesterday the Council’s permanent representatives committee (Coreper) common position on the text of the draft Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (DSM Directive).
The text thus approved will serve as a mandate for the presidency of the Council [currently Bulgaria, but Austria as of 1 July] to start negotiations with the European Parliament, once this has also agreed its own position.
As readers may know, following the proposal for a DSM Directive by the EU Commission [on which see Katposts here] the Council and the European Parliament are now the EU institutions tasked with adopting the draft directive and making it EU law [if you wish to learn more about how the EU law-making process works, click here].
So, what are the key points of the text agreed within Coreper, particularly with regard to the provisions that have attracted the most attention?
It appears possible for Member States to adopt their own non-commercial text and data mining exceptions for different types of beneficiaries, in line with what is stated in Recital 5 and Art 17 [already discussed here].
The new right would not have retroactive effect (Art 11(5)).
The directive is said to clarify without changing the concept of ‘communication to the public’ and ‘making available to the public’. In accordance with Art 13(1) “an online content sharing service provider performs an act of communication to the public or an act of making available to the public when it gives the public access to copyright protected works or other protected subject matter uploaded by its users.” [I wonder whether it would be more appropriate, instead of attempting a definition of what qualifies and who makes an act of communication to the public, to say that “an online content sharing service provider performs an act of communication to the public or an act of making available to the public in accordance with the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union”].
Applicable exceptions and limitations shall remain unaffected [also note that Recital 45 mandates an interpretation and application of the Directive in accordance with the rights and principles found in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights].
The next step will be now to see the position of the European Parliament (the JURI Committee Rapporteur has yet to issue his report) ... Stay tuned!
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that online IP enforcement must be (increasingly) in want of an effective involvement of intermediaries in the enforcement process.
The topic thus turns to intermediary injunctions, ie something that at the EU level is substantially enshrined in two pieces of legislation, these being: the InfoSoc Directive (Art 8(3)), as far as injunctions in copyright cases are concerned; and the Enforcement Directive (Art 11, third sentence), with regard to the other IP rights.
The relevant provisions have similar content.
Art 8(3) states that "Member States shall ensure that rightholders are in a position to apply for an injunction against intermediaries whose services are used by a third party to infringe a copyright or related right."
The third sentence of Art 11 provides that "Member States shall also ensure that rightholders are in a position to apply for an injunction against intermediaries whose services are used by a third party to infringe an intellectual property right, without prejudice to Article 8(3) of Directive 2001/29/EC [that is the InfoSoc Directive]."
Intermediary injunctions are available irrespective of whether the intermediary targeted by it has any liability for the infringement committed by users of its services and is therefore distinct from both issues of safe harbours protection as per the E-commerce Directive and issues of primary (direct) liability or the intermediary itself.
Having said this, it seems fair to say that the actual EU framework for intermediary injunctions and, more generally, intermediary liability has been shaped through the wealth of cases that have reached the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) over the past few years by means of references for a preliminary ruling.
But what core principles can be extracted from the resulting CJEU decisions?
Principle #1 - In its case law - including the recent judgments in Tommy Hilfiger [here] and Mc Fadden [Katposts here] - the CJEU has clarified that the notion of 'intermediary' is both loose and broad: for an economic operator to be considered as ‘intermediary’ it is sufficient that they provide – even among other things – a service capable of being used by one or more other persons in order to infringe one or more IP rights.
Principle #2 - This is a principle that the CJEU provided in its landmark decision in L'Orèal when it held that the injunctions referred to in the third sentence of Article 11 differ from those referred to in the first sentence of that provision: while the latter are addressed to infringers and intend to prohibit the continuation of an infringement, the former are addressed to the “more complex” situation of intermediaries whose services are used by third parties to infringe one's own IP rights. Also taking into account the overall objective of the Enforcement Directive, ie to ensure an effective protection of IP rights, alongside the provision in Article 18 of the E-commerce Directive and Recital 24 in the preamble to the Enforcement Directive, the court concluded – contrary to the more limited view expressed by Advocate General (AG) Jääskinen in his Opinion – that the jurisdiction conferred by the third sentence in Article 11 of the Enforcement Directive allows national courts to order an intermediary to take measures that contribute not only to terminate infringements committed through its services, but also prevent further infringements.
Principle #3 - In respect of this principle it should be noted that, while EU law leaves the conditions and modalities of injunctions to EU Member States, the CJEU has referred to the need of complying with different types of sources that include, inter alia: the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (notably copyright protection, freedom of expression/information, freedom to conduct a business, protection of personal data), the Enforcement Directive (in particular Arts 2(3) and 3 therein), the E-commerce Directive (including Art 15 therein).
Principle #4 - In UPC Telekabel [Katposts here] the CJEU held that this particular type of injunction is indeed available under EU law. Importantly, and contrary to the view expressed by AG Cruz Villalón, a blocking injunction does not have to be specific: its addressee should determine the specific measures to be taken in order to achieve the result sought.
Principle #5 - The final principle, which the CJEU has adopted in the context of a reference also concerning the availability of intermediary injunctions (The Pirate Bay case [Katposts here]), serves to note that - when we speak of intermediaries - we should not (or perhaps, no longer) think about them solely as addressees of injunctions or as subjects that might lose (if the relevant conditions are satisfied) their safe harbour protection, but also as subjects that - in certain contexts - might be directly liable for the infringement of third-party IP rights. The decision in The Pirate Bay has potentially begun a new chapter in the topic of intermediary liability (and also injunctions), the relevant implications of which are currently being worked out. While it is true that the CJEU case concerned a rather 'rogue' platform (The Pirate Bay), are the considerations made in that decision more broadly applicable? In this sense, a case pending before the German Federal Court of Justice and concerning the primary liability of YouTube [reported by The IPKat here] might assist in understanding more fully the implications of CJEU case law.
Can YouTube be primarily liable for users' infringements?
Can YouTube be considered primarily responsible (and, therefore, potentially liable) for the making available of user-uploaded content through its platform? In other words: can YouTube be considered as directly making acts of communication to the public?
This is the crucial question Germany’s Federal Court of Justice (BGH) will need to address in a case (I ZR 140/15) that was heard last week. The decision is due on 13 September.
As summarized by the BGH press office, the claimant in this case is a music producer who has sued Google/YouTube over the unauthorized making available, on the defendants’ platform, of videos containing musical works from the repertoire of soprano Sarah Brightman. The claimant had signed an exclusive contract with this singer in 2006, allowing him to exploit recordings of her performances.
In 2008 unauthorized videos featuring Brightman’s performances were made available on YouTube. Apparently, following a takedown request, a number of videos was removed from YouTube, but infringing material was made available once again shortly afterwards.
In 2010 the first instance court sided with the claimant in respect of three songs, and dismissed the action for the remaining claims.
Both the producer and Google/YouTube appealed the decision and in 2015 the appellate court only partly sided with the producer. Most importantly, it rejected the idea that YouTube could be regarded as primarily liable for the making available of infringing content, although it found that liability would subsist under the typically German ‘Störerhaftung’ doctrine (a form of accessory liability) under §97(1) of the German Copyright Act.
The case is now pending before the BGH and the decision is keenly awaited. As far as I know (but please correct me if I am mistaken), a platform like YouTube has never been found primarily liable for the infringement of copyright or a related right by a German court. However, the decision of the BGH – no matter in what sense - will be of great importance, also outside Germany, for two essential reasons.
First, it will be an opportunity to reflect upon and test the effect of the (rather expansive) case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on the right of communication to the public within Article 3 of the InfoSoc Directive. It should be noted that the appellate court decided the case in 2015, ie before key judgments like GS Media [Katposts here], Filmspeler [Katposts here] and Ziggo (ie The Pirate Bay case) [Katposts here] were even issued.
Secondly, it will serve to appreciate whether and to what extent the policy discourse around the so called ‘value gap’ proposal within Article 13 of the draft Directive on copyright in the Digital Single Market [Katposts here] would signal a departure from the existing legal framework.
So far the CJEU has decided nearly 20 cases on the right of communication to the public [see here for my map offering a ‘simplified’ version of the construction of this exclusive right], the latest instalment being last year’s decision in Ziggo (The Pirate Bay case). There the CJEU held that the operators of a platform that makes available to the public third-party uploaded copyright content and provides functions such as indexing, categorization, deletion and filtering of content may be liable for copyright infringement, jointly with users of the platform. For a finding of liability it is not required that the operators possess actual knowledge of the infringing character of the content uploaded by users.
The judgment, which I discuss more at length here, is rather short and leaves certain points ambiguous. Crucially, it is not entirely clear to what extent conclusions which are valid (and sensible) for a ‘rogue’ platform like The Pirate Bay can be extended to other platforms.
What seems however self-evident is that CJEU case law on Article 3 of the InfoSoc Directive has adopted a broad approach to the definition of what constitutes an ‘act of communication to the public’, stressing – among other things –the centrality of the notion of ‘indispensable intervention’ of the user/defendant. We now know, at least since GS Media, Filmspeler and Ziggo, that ‘indispensable intervention’ should be intended as an intervention aimed at facilitating access to content that would be otherwise more difficult to locate.
In parallel with developments at the CJEU level, the policy discourse has unfolded in such a way that Article 13 of the proposed DSM Directive is rooted within the idea that operators of platforms – no matter how you wish to call them – that give access to user-uploaded copyright content make in fact acts of communication to the public, together with users of their services.
In the latest versions of the DSM Directive – both at the Council [this should be the latest compromise proposal of the Bulgarian presidency] and EU Parliament levels [here for MEP Voss's compromise proposal] – it is clarified that this idea would not be a departure from what the law already says, in that it is based on case law on Article 3 of the InfoSoc Directive. Hence, it would be just a consolidation and clarification of what the law already is.
As things currently stand, it seems that the BGH will decide this case without making a reference for a preliminary ruling to the CJEU.
In any event, the resulting decision will add an additional piece to the (complex) construction of the right of communication/making available to the public.
What has become central is no longer (or rather, not just) what constitutes an act of communication to the public, but rather who is responsible/liable for such act.
The BGH decision might help refine further the terms of such fundamental debate.

References: Art 17
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Art 8
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