Source: https://elawnora.blogspot.com/2018/08/
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 08:55:00+00:00

Document:
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.
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 operated and from which unauthorized copies of Mondadori magazines could be downloaded through links made available therein.
The Milan court initially granted the interim injunction in favour of Mondadori.
Later that year, Mondadori discovered that the platform had once again changed name and, through a new domain, was still making links available for the download of unlawful copies of its magazines.
So, Mondadori requested the ISPs subject to the first injunction to take the appropriate measures to block access to the new versions of the platform, but without success. The ISPs, in fact, claimed that Mondadori’s request would be outside the scope of the injunction against them. This means that Mondadori had to apply for a new injunction, which it obtained inaudita altera parte.
The court should also hear the actual infringers in the context of such proceedings.
During the hearing for the confirmation of the injunction, Mondadori requested that the ISPs be ordered to block access not just to the domains indicated in the application, but also any domain names that would redirect to the platform.
In its decisions, the Milan court rejected the need that, in proceedings against ISPs, also the actual infringers should be heard.
Turning to the claim that the measure requested by Mondadori would amount to a general monitoring obligation, the Court recalled the decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in L’Oréal and Scarlet, to note that enforcement measures must be proportionate and not excessively costly. This said, an ISP is under an obligation to promptly inform competent authorities should it become aware of any infringements committed by users of its service, and this is so irrespective of any liability of the intermediary for the infringements themselves. In any case, intermediaries may be the addressees of injunctions against them.
The court then noted that Mondadori’s rights were repeatedly infringed through the different domain names under which the infringing platform operated.
Also recalling the CJEU Telekabel decision, the court ruled that it is compatible with the E-commerce Directive (notably Article 15 therein) to request an ISP to take the most appropriate measures to block access, not just to the domain names identified in the relevant injunction, but also to any further domain names under which infringements relating to the same rights are committed.
If the obligation of an ISP as resulting from a certain injunction was limited to the domain names indicated therein, this would make the measure issued pointless: it is in fact likely that, at the time of issuing the injunction, the infringer is already operating under a different domain name.
Hence, an injunction that required the ISPs targeted by it to block access to current and future domain names through which infringements of the same rights are committed would be the only one that may “have the effect of preventing unauthorised access to the protected subject-matter or, at least, of making it difficult to achieve and of seriously discouraging internet users who are using the services of the addressee of that injunction” (Telekabel, para 64).
The court reasoned that, if the intervention of a judge was needed in relation to any further infringement of the same right, no injunction could be issued pro futuro, and this would be contrary to the rationale underlying the availability of injunctions themselves.
Furthermore, injunctions may in certain cases lose some effectiveness because of changes in the subject matter in respect of which the injunction was ordered. This may be, for example, the case of website blocking injunctions, where a competent judicial authority grants the injunction with reference to certain specific domain names, whilst mirror websites can appear easily under other domain names and thus remain unaffected by the injunction.
Dynamic injunctions are a possible means to address this. These are injunctions which can be issued for instance in cases in which materially the same website becomes available immediately after issuing the injunction with a different IP address or URL and which is drafted in a way that allows to also cover the new IP address or URL without the need for a new judicial procedure to obtain a new injunction.
However, to be compatible with the prohibition of general monitoring obligations, a dynamic injunction must include an obligation of the relevant rightholder to provide the targeted ISPs with a prior, specific notification concerning the new domain names through which infringements are committed.
This is an interesting, although not completely new, development in the approach to intermediary injunctions in Italy. In reaching its conclusion, the court referred to the rationale of injunctions as an enforcement measure.
The CJEU itself in L'Oréal clarified that injunctions against intermediaries may be aimed repressing existing infringements but also preventing future infringements of the same rights. In that case, the CJEU clarified how the injunctions referred to in the third sentence of Article 11 of the Enforcement Directive differ from those to in the first sentence of that provision: while the latter directly target infringers and intend to prohibit the continuation of an infringement, the former relate to the ‘more complex’ situation of intermediaries whose services are used by third parties to infringe third-party rights. Also taking into account the overall objective of the Enforcement Directive, this being ensuring an effective protection of intellectual property rights, alongside the provision in Article 18 of the E-commerce Directive and Recital 24 in the preamble to the Enforcement Directive, the CJEU concluded 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 the termination of infringements committed through its services, but also preventing further infringements.
This conclusion appears in line with the overall framework established by the E-commerce Directive: Articles 12(3) (in relation to mere conduit providers), 13(2) (in relation to caching providers) and 14(3) clarify in fact that a court or administrative authority, in accordance with Member States' legal systems, may require the service provider at issue to terminate or prevent an infringement.
Furthermore, the safeguards envisaged by the Milan court appear in line with the practice in other EU Member States, including the UK, where - also in the context of the most recent innovation, live blocking orders [here and here] - rightholders are required to provide the list of target sites to be blocked. As regards the issue of costs, in the Milan case, the reasoning (albeit in the context of interim proceedings) appears substantially similar with the most recent approach in the UK, as envisaged by the Supreme Court in Cartier [here].
Has the CJEU quietly changed the conditions for safe harbour availability?
Right before the summer break, on 7 August last, when most people had already turned their out-of-office auto-reply on or were getting ready to move to the beach, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued quite an interesting ruling - SNB-REACT, C-521/17 - concerning enforcement of IP rights under Article 4(c) of the Enforcement Directive and the availability and scope of the safe harbours under the E-Commerce Directive.
This referral from Estonia was made in the context of proceedings that a collecting society, SNB-REACT, had initiated against an individual, Deepak Mehta, concerning the latter's alleged liability for infringement of the IP rights of 10 trade mark owners.
According to SNB-REACT, Mehta had allegedly registered a number of IP addresses and internet domain names, which unlawfully used signs identical to the trade marks owned by SNB-REACT members, together with websites unlawfully offering for sale goods bearing such signs.
Mehta, however: (1) denied that he had registered the IP addresses and domain names challenged by the claimant; (2) even if he owned 38,000 IP addresses, he had rented them to third-party companies; and (3) this activity should be regarded as akin to that of a service providing access to an electronic communications network, together with an information transmission service, being - as a result - eligible for the safe harbour protection under the Estonian provisions corresponding to Article 12 to 14 of the E-Commerce Directive.
At first instance, SNB-REACT's action was dismissed on grounds that, first, it would lack standing to bring legal proceedings in its own name to enforce its members' rights and, second, Mehta was eligible, as an information society service provider, for the safe harbour protection.
(1) Is Article 4(c) of [the Enforcement Directive] to be interpreted as meaning that Member States are required to recognise bodies collectively representing trade mark proprietors as persons with standing to pursue legal remedies in their own name to defend the rights of trade mark proprietors and to bring actions before the courts in their own name to enforce the rights of trade mark proprietors?
The CJEU answered both questions in the affirmative, without seeking the prior Opinion of the appointed Advocate General (Wathelet).
First, the expression 'applicable law' refers to both EU and national laws, as appropriate.
Second, Member States do not enjoy unlimited discretion as to whether or not recognize collecting societies as having standing.
Third, as is apparent from Recital 18 in the preamble to the Enforcement Directive, EU law intended to grant standing also to those having a direct interest in the defence of third-party IP rights.
It follows that, where a collecting society is regarded by national law as having a direct interest in the defence of its members' rights and that law allows that body to bring legal proceedings, the Member States are required to recognize such collecting society as a person entitled to seek application of the measures, procedures and remedies provided for by the Enforcement Directive, and to bring legal proceedings for the purpose of enforcing such rights.
Turning to the second question, the CJEU provided a recap of the conditions at which the safe harbours within Article 12 to 14 of the E-commerce Directive apply.
normally in return for remuneration.
It is a notion that includes services contributing to facilitating relations between persons engaged in online sales activities and their customers.
The CJEU found that it did not have sufficient evidence to determine whether a service like that one at issue in the background proceedings would fall within the notion of information society service, but it appeared not to exclude it.
Then the CJEU turned to consideration of the conditions at which the 'limitations of liability' [note that the Court used the term 'limitations'], aka safe harbours under the E-commerce Directive, apply. And here the Court provided a 'checklist'.
Review whether the conditions for the safe harbour for the specific service at issue are satisfied.
For all three scenarios, the safe harbour only applies where the activity of the information society service provider is of a mere technical, automatic, and passive nature. This implies that that service provider has neither knowledge of nor control over the information which is transmitted or stored by the persons to whom he provides his services.
without at least a (cheerful) sailor Kat pic!
When is the safe harbour trumped?
it is for the referring court to satisfy itself, in the light of all relevant facts and evidence, as to whether such a service provider has neither the knowledge of nor control over the information transmitted or cached by his clients and whether he does not play an active role by allowing them to optimise their online sales activity.
Article 14 of Directive 2000/31 must be interpreted as meaning that the rule laid down therein applies to an internet referencing service provider in the case where that service provider has not played an active role of such a kind as to give it knowledge of, or control over, the data stored. If it has not played such a role, that service provider cannot be held liable for the data which it has stored at the request of an advertiser, unless, having obtained knowledge of the unlawful nature of those data or of that advertiser’s activities, it failed to act expeditiously to remove or to disable access to the data concerned.
Where, by contrast, the operator has provided assistance which entails, in particular, optimising the presentation of the offers for sale in question or promoting those offers, it must be considered not to have taken a neutral position between the customer-seller concerned and potential buyers but to have played an active role of such a kind as to give it knowledge of, or control over, the data relating to those offers for sale. It cannot then rely, in the case of those data, on the exemption from liability referred to in Article 14(1) of Directive 2000/31.
As it appears to be the case when the Court decides without the prior Opinion of the appointed AG, the resulting reasoning is not as straightforward as one would wish.
The approach to the definition of the conditions for excluding the availability of the safe harbours is telling: are paragraphs 50 and 52 in the judgment just the result of rather imprecise writing or has the Court, instead, inaugurated a new approach to the definition of the conditions for the E-commerce safe harbours?
The answer is ... till the next preliminary ruling!
In Renckhoff, C-161/17 it ruled - contrary to the Opinion of Advocate General Campos Sanchéz-Bordona [here and here; ALAI thought it was very bad, and criticized it here] - that in a situation like the one at issue the unauthorized re-posting of a copyright work would be an act of communication to the public within Article 3(1) of the InfoSoc Directive.
As readers might remember, this case had a fairly odd factual background. The national proceedings relate in fact to copyright litigation that a photographer has brought in Germany against a school over the use, by one of the pupils, of copyright-protected material without authorization.
More specifically, one of the pupils found an image of the city of Cordoba online and used it for an assignment for her Spanish class, providing acknowledgment of the website from which she had downloaded the photograph (though not of the photographer, because the website where the photograph appeared did not provide any).
Upon finishing her work, she and her teacher uploaded it on the school's website, but the photographer came forward claiming infringement of his copyright in the photograph, and that he had just granted a licence to use to the image to the website from which the pupil had downloaded it.
Does the inclusion of a work — which is freely accessible to all internet users on a third-party website with the consent of the copyright holder — on a person’s own publicly accessible website constitute a making available of that work to the public within the meaning of Article 3(1) of [Directive 2001/29] if the work is first copied onto a server and is uploaded from there to that person’s own website?
The reposting of protected content freely available with the rightholder's consent on a third-party website is a new act of communication to the public (I'd also add that it is also an act of reproduction, and in fact this has been already established in the national proceedings) and no analogy with linking to lawful and freely accessible content in a Svensson sense may be drawn. Here the point is not - as it was, instead, in Svensson whether there is a communication to a new public, because there is a new communication to the public tout court.
The fact that a work has been initially published online and made available with no restrictions is irrelevant: holding otherwise would be akin to imposing formalities to the enjoyment and exercise of copyright, and this would go against the prohibition in Article 5(2) of the Berne Convention.
The Court also recalled that copyright protection in a photograph only arises when the photograph is its author's own intellectual creation, in the sense that it results from the making of free and creative choices and carries the author's personal touch, in the sense clarified in Painer. Readers will remember that the AG doubted that the one at issue would be a copyright-protected photograph. However, Article 6 of the Term Directive leaves EU Member States free to protect sub-original photos.
Overall, the judgment is good news for copyright owners, in that it gives them reassurance that the control over their works is not reduced over the internet.
The ruling is also interesting in relation to the practice of certain websites (including newspapers) that directly host third-party video content in respect of which they neither own the rights nor do they have a licence, in lieu of displaying such videos by means of embedded links. While the latter might be lawful (depending on whether the requirements set in Svensson and GS Media are fulfilled), the former might pave the way to a finding of liability. This may be something that we knew already, but that now the CJEU has confirmed.

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