The European Harmonisation of Intermediairy Civil Liability for Online Copyright Infringement

C.J. Angelopoulos

With the adoption and subsequent national implementation of the E-Commerce Directive’s safe harbour regime, the architecture set up for intermediary liability in Europe has become two-tiered: at a first stage, it is necessary to examine whether a given intermediary attracts, in its pursuit of a certain activity, civil liability according to the standards ensconced in the Member States’ legislation and only then, in the second instance, must the inapplicability of any immunity be established. As a result, although it provides a veneer of approximation by immunising intermediaries under certain circumscribed conditions, the Directive does not harmonise the underlying substantive liability norms which determine whether the safe harbours will be necessary or redundant. This leaves ample room for national divergences, particularly as concerns new types of intermediaries whose eligibility for the existing safe harbours is uncertain.

This PhD research seeks to explore the liability in Europe of online intermediaries for secondary or indirect copyright infringement, i.e. where the material act of infringement is committed by a third party, regardless of the applicability of the safe harbour regime. It will therefore begin with an investigation of the current law relating to intermediary liability for copyright infringement in the legal jurisdictions of England, France and Germany, these three jurisdictions representing each of the three major European extra-contractual liability traditions. The relationship between these rules and national substantive tort principles in the selected countries will subsequently be examined. This shall be done with a view to uncovering common European tort principles that can potentially lead the way to a harmonised, clear and comprehensive European liability regime of intermediaries for copyright infringement.

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2253 entries « ‹ 1 of 46 › »

Bodó, B.; Janssen, H.

Maintaining trust in a technologized public sector Journal Article

In: Policy and Society, 2022.

Abstract | Links | BibTeX

@article{nokey,

title = {Maintaining trust in a technologized public sector},

author = {Bod\'{o}, B. and Janssen, H.},

doi = {https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puac019},

year  = {2022},

date = {2022-05-19},

journal = {Policy and Society},

abstract = {Emerging technologies permeate and potentially disrupt a wide spectrum of our social, economic, and political relations. Various state institutions, including education, law enforcement, and healthcare, increasingly rely on technical components, such as automated decision-making systems, e-government systems, and other digital tools to provide cheap, efficient public services, and supposedly fair, transparent, disinterested, and accountable public administration. The increased interest in various blockchain-based solutions from central bank digital currencies, via tokenized educational credentials, and distributed ledger-based land registries to self-sovereign identities is the latest, still mostly unwritten chapter in a long history of standardized, objectified, automated, technocratic, and technologized public administration. The rapid, (often) unplanned, and uncontrolled technologization of public services (as happened in the hasty adoption of distance-learning and teleconferencing systems during Corona Virus Disease (COVID) lockdowns) raises complex questions about the use of novel technological components, which may or may not be ultimately adequate for the task for which they are used. The question whether we can trust the technical infrastructures the public sector uses when providing public services is a central concern in an age where trust in government is declining: If the government’s artificial intelligence system that detects welfare fraud fails, the public’s confidence in the government is ultimately hit. In this paper, we provide a critical assessment of how the use of potentially untrustworthy (private) technological systems including blockchain-based systems in the public sector may affect trust in government. We then propose several policy options to protect the trust in government even if some of their technological components prove fundamentally untrustworthy.},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

Ferrari, V.

The platformisation of digital payments: The fabrication of consumer interest in the EU FinTech agenda Journal Article

In: Computer Law & Security Review, vol. 45, 2022.

Abstract | Links | BibTeX

@article{nokey,

title = {The platformisation of digital payments: The fabrication of consumer interest in the EU FinTech agenda},

author = {Ferrari, V.},

url = {https://www.ivir.nl/computerlawsecurityreview_2022/},

doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clsr.2022.105687},

year  = {2022},

date = {2022-05-19},

journal = { Computer Law \& Security Review},

volume = {45},

abstract = {This paper investigates, through a qualitative analysis of official documents, how certain imaginaries about technology filter into EU policymaking, allowing or accelerating the transformation of payment infrastructures into the platform economy.



One of the ways in which socio-technical imaginaries filter into policymaking is, it turns out, by informing an image of the consumer which serves to justify measures for the realization of a desired future. In particular, the documents offer a view of the consumer as an actor that is empowered by digitisation. The thesis of this paper is that this view of the consumer is partial: the rhetoric of consumer technological empowerment outweighs and conceals much needed considerations about the vulnerability of consumers vis-a-vis data-intensive payment technologies. Ultimately, the fault lies with the future imaginaries upon which such image is grounded. The vision of the digital payment infrastructure portrayed in the documents is in fact problematic for two reasons. First, the technologies that are portraited as desirable are chosen based on industry interests and trends rather than considerations of benefits and risks that these technologies entail. Secondly, the assumption that a liberalized market will offer more and better choices is flawed, as platformisation entails risks of monopolization and abuses of market power. We suggest that policymakers in this domain should be more critical of the risks entailed by platformisation, and open their imagination to alternative technological futures.},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

Quintais, J.

Between Filters and Fundamental Rights: How the Court of Justice saved Article 17 in C-401/19 - Poland v. Parliament and Council Journal Article

In: Verfassungsblog, 2022.

Abstract | Links | BibTeX

E., Derclaye; van Eechoud, M.; Husovec, M.; Senftleben, M.

Opinion of the European Copyright Society on selected aspects of the proposed Data Act Journal Article

In: Kluwer Copyright Blog, 2022.

The European Harmonisation of Intermediairy Civil Liability for Online Copyright Infringement

C.J. Angelopoulos

Publicaties