The German Federal Court of Justice rejects liability for image search thumbnails even if they are indexed on websites showing the images without permission as long as other websites did so with the rights holder’s consent. The first landmark case involving thumbnail previews of Google’s image search function in Germany (Vorschaubilder I, 2010) had dealt…

The Dutch Court of Appeal in Leeuwarden has ruled in favor of an online market platform with regard to its liability for intellectual property infringements and the burden of policing for unlawful use of its platform. The case between Stokke, the producer of the Tripp Trapp highchair, and Marktplaats, an eBay subsidiary and the most…

On 10 May, the District Court of The Hague extended an earlier ruling with regard to two access providers to block The Pirate Bay to several major Dutch access providers.  The providers lament the ruling and consider appealing it, but soon more than 90% of the Dutch market blocks the infamous website. On the same…

In recent years, Italian courts have struggled to create a new figure, the ‘active hosting provider,’ whereby providers that do not offer any content themselves, can nonetheless be held liable with regard to their (commercial) activities in relation to infringing content that was uploaded by users. On the one hand, it could be argued that…

UK: High Court Chancery Division, 26 March 2012,  Golden Eye (International) Ltd v Telefonica UK Ltd. Copyright owners (‘owners of the copyrights in pornographic films’) brought a claim for Norwich Pharmacal relief (“If through no fault of his own a person gets mixed up in the tortious acts of others so as to facilitate their…

UK: High Court Chancery Division, 23 March 2012, Seaton v Seddon. The members of the reggae band Musical Youth brought a case against their former solicitors with regards to the royalties due from a hit single: “Pass the Dutchie”. This song was an arrangement of another piece of music, entitled “Pass the Kouchie”. The claim in…

The CJEU’s ruling in the Scarlet v. SABAM case (C 70/10) is still fresh in our memories: court injunctions to install global and preventative filtering systems with a view to preventing copyright infringements are precluded. SABAM asked again for the same measures in the framework of the SABAM v. Netlog litigation. Again, the Belgian court…

We are experiencing a new trend by Italian first instance courts in addressing the issue of liability of hosting providers for contents posted by users in copyright infringement cases. The new approach is likely to impose providers of video sharing platforms (such as YouTube, Dailymotion and others) dramatic changes in their model of business, with…

by Linda Scales, solicitor, Dublin. A copyright controversy has been raging in Ireland this week. The SOPA/PIPA debate fuelled fears that an unpublished piece of secondary legislation would provide a regime similar to that proposed in the US. The Irish instrument was labelled “Ireland’s SOPA”, even though no one knew what the document contained. In…

By Axel Arnbak, IViR. Last week, a Dutch district court ruled that two internet access providers, Ziggo & XS4ALL, have to block customers’ access to the IP-addresses and (sub)domains of The Pirate Bay. The providers will appeal the ruling of the District Court of The Hague. Amidst global PR-hurricanes on the legality of website blocking,…