The last couple of years has seen the emergence of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) as an important medium for the creation, sale and collection of art, with numerous instances of big money purchases of NFTs. NFTs began as a sub-culture of sorts for artists to sell work in a digitised format, but they are now increasingly…

The judgement of the European Court of Justice in case C-401/19 has hardly laid to rest the debates over the use of upload filters in automated copyright enforcement. On the contrary, by declaring Article 17 of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market compatible with the Charter, while requiring Member States to ensure…

With its landmark decision in Poland/Parliament and Council of 26 April 2022 (case C-401/19), the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has clarified that the filtering obligations arising from Article 17(4)(b) and (c) of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market 2019/790 (“DSM Directive” or “DSMD”), are…

The Austrian Supreme Court held that YouTube – as a host service provider – was not responsible for copyright infringements by its users as long as it was not put on notice of the infringements (17. 9. 2021, 4 Ob 132/21x). For monetizing uploaded videos, the uploading user has to confirm that they have read…

Part I of this post discussed Grand Chamber judgment on the validity of Article 17 CDSMD and explained the need for a more concrete strategy to meet the challenge of implementing that provision in national laws. This part II discusses the growth of public regulators as a check on the rise of private power in…

This two-part blog post offers both an evaluation of the current regulatory challenge faced by MS implementing Art. 17 CDSMD after the CJEU’s ruling in Case C-401/19, as well as a fresh perspective on tackling the implementation challenge ahead. Part I of this post provides context to our analysis, explaining the need for a more…

Article 17 is here to stay, but most national implementations fail to meet the fundamental rights standards developed by the Court in its judgment. Tuesday’s long-awaited ruling in Case C-401/19 finally brings some clarity to the almost three-year-long discussion about the implementation of Article 17 of the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive (DSM…

“Web3 cannot and should not be reduced to blockchain when the real shift is towards user ownership of digital assets… This definitional shift focuses attention on what assets can be legally owned and the meaning of ownership “rights,” more generally, in the emerging digital spaces of web3.”   The Rift Over Web3 The week before…

Fundamental Rights are the constants in many constitutional orders. They provide stability, continuity in values and encapsulate the normative skeleton of a society. Especially in times of change, they serve as guiding principles for citizens, governments and, if push comes to shove, the judiciary. Amongst the many examples in which fundamental rights have demonstrated their…

At the beginning of 2021, half a year before the implementation deadline of the DSM directive, only a single EU member state (the Netherlands) had passed a full implementation of the DSM directive. By the date of the implementation deadline a mere three Member States had fully implemented the directive, and by the end of…