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Copyright blocking – recent UK cases

The latest case brought by rightsholders under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 has found that bittorrent tracker site The Pirate Bay does infringe copyright according to the Act. Following this decision it seems likely that rightsholders will seek injunctions under s97A of the Act requiring ISPs to “block” access to the site, as […]

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ECJ on Copyright Injunctions: Hosting Providers

After ruling last year on the balance between the rights of copyright holders, users and network providers, the European Court of Justice has now ruled on the same question applied to the case of a hosting provider, the social network Netlog. As in the earlier Scarlett case, the copyright collecting society (SABAM) had asked the […]

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ECJ on Copyright Injunctions

The European Court of Justice has set some limits for the sorts of measures that ISPs can be compelled to implement to discourage copyright breach by their networks. Back in 2004 the Belgian rightsholder representative SABAM sought a court order requiring an ISP, Scarlet, to install devices on its network that inspected the content of […]

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Re-opening the Internet?

Two recent news stories suggest that the importance of open Internet connectivity is gaining increasing international recognition. The UN’s Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression has published a report stressing the importance both of making internet infrastructure available to as much of the world’s population […]

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OFCOM to Review DEA Blocking Powers

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has today announced that Ofcom will be asked to review the practicality of the provisions in section 17 of the Digital Economy Act 2010 that might in future allow courts to order blocking of infringing sites. In our responses to previous consultations on the Act we have expressed […]

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apComms – Regulating the Internet

The all-party parliamentary communications group (apComms) have published the results of their enquiry into various aspects of internet security – entitled “Can we keep our hands off the net?” – to which JANET provided written evidence earlier in the summer. We responded on two of the five questions, relating to the work of the Internet […]