16 July 2024
Digital News Aggregators, Media Plurality and the Right to Information
The advent of the digital economy has brought many challenges to traditional business models, leading to new issues that go beyond pure market problems. This is also true for the news media industry since the emergence and rapid expansion of digital platforms like Google and Facebook. While the latter, in contrast to press publishers, do not produce any news content themselves, they have become digital news aggregators and first contact points for readers of online news. In this post, we reflect on the existing approaches towards addressing the bargaining imbalance between press publishers and digital news aggregators. We argue that the most adequate measure in addressing this imbalance would be a regulatory instrument such as a bargaining code. Continue reading >>
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28 May 2024
The Unbearable Lightness of Interfering with the Right to Privacy
The European Court of Justice has once again ruled on national data retention laws. In La Quadrature du Net II, the full court allowed the indiscriminate retention of IP addresses for the purpose of fighting copyright infringement. It seems that the Court is slowly but surely abandoning its role as guardian of the right to privacy, as it now allows member states to collect vast amounts of data on their citizens in order to solve even the most minor of crimes. Continue reading >>
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19 March 2024
The Fall of The Great Paywall for EU Harmonised Standards
In case C-588/21 P, the CJEU dismantled a foundational axiom of the European Standardisation System: the paywall of harmonised standards. The Court confirmed that harmonised standards are an integral part of EU law, mandating their free accessibility. In this commentary, I posit that the Court’s decision imposes a proactive publication obligation and challenges the existing copyright protection afforded to harmonised standards. Continue reading >>
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19 February 2024
From the DMCA to the DSA
On 17 February 2024, the Digital Services Act (DSA) became fully applicable in Europe. The DSA's new approach fundamentally reshapes the regulation and liability of platforms in Europe, and promises to have a significant impact in other jurisdictions, like the US, where there are persistent calls for legislative interventions to reign in the power of Big Tech. This symposium brings together a group of renowned European and American scholars to carry an academic transatlantic dialogue on the potential benefits and risks of the EU’s new approach. Continue reading >>
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21 September 2023
The Legal Art of Judging Art
In another round of the case "Metall auf Metall", the German Federal Court of Justice is asking the Court of Justice of the European Union how to define the concept of pastiche. The CJEU response will not only be crucial for the rules of artistic imitation, but also set the legal frame for the digital reference culture of millions, as expressed in Memes and GIFs every day. This Article takes the referral to the CJEU as an opportunity to recapitulate the proceedings with a sideways glance at the Supreme Court’s Warhol case. Its discussion of transformative use addresses the questions the CJEU will have to answer when defining “pastiche”. How should we deal with the art of imitation? Continue reading >>
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18 May 2023
The Magic Bullet That Isn’t!
Article 17 of the European Union's Copyright Directive fails to effectively safeguard copyright exceptions, which can gravely undermine users’ freedom of expression in the digital public sphere. Against this backdrop, the enactment of Article 14 of the Digital Services Act offered fresh hope. Could it be the eagerly awaited ‘magic bullet’ that ensures effective protection of user rights to rely copyright exceptions to parody and quotation on social media platforms? The possibility of such an outcome is doubtful. Continue reading >>
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05 October 2022
Filtering fundamental rights
On platforms, the protection of fundamental rights is increasingly provided by algorithms. With the Digital Services Act (DSA) at the door, algorithms used for copyright protection were probably only the first step in regard to automated decision-making. Indeed, the DSA, conceived by the Union legislator as the new constitution of the Internet, presupposes the use of algorithmic filtering. Human pre-examination has become impossible due to the sheer amount of user-generated content. Filters are an effective moderation tool that is cost-effective compared to human review. But being fast is easier than being right: the usual method of applying European fundamental rights hangs heavily on the proportionality test, which at least at the current technological level escapes automation: fundamental rights cannot be filtered. Continue reading >>16 May 2022
Between Filters and Fundamental Rights
On 26 April 2022 the CJEU delivered its much-awaited judgement in Case C-401/19 – Poland v. Parliament and Council. The case concerns the validity of Article 17 of the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive in light of fundamental rights. The judgment marks the climax of a turbulent journey in the area of copyright law, with potential implications for the future of platform regulation and content moderation in EU law. Continue reading >>
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18 November 2020
In zwei Stunden von Luxemburg nach Brüssel spazieren
Vor anderthalb Jahren gingen knapp 200.000 Menschen gegen die EU-Urheberrechtsreform auf die Straße. Stein des Anstoßes war Artikel 17 der Urheberrechtsrichtlinie, der bestimmte Online-Plattformen für die Urheberrechtsverletzungen ihrer Nutzer:innen in Haftung nimmt. Um dem zu entgehen, müssen Plattformen auf Wunsch von Rechteinhaber:innen den Zugang zu deren Werken sperren. Die Befürchtung, dass auch legale Nutzungen den Uploadfiltern zum Opfer fallen werden, trieb die Menschen auf die Straße. Zwar sind die Proteste nach der Verabschiedung der Richtlinie zunächst verebbt, während die Mitgliedstaaten mit der komplizierten Aufgabe betraut sind, Artikel 17 in ihr nationales Urheberrecht zu überführen. Es wäre jedoch ein Fehler, die relative Ruhe als Zeichen für die Lösung der grundlegenden Probleme rund um Artikel 17 zu interpretieren. Der Konflikt wurde stattdessen nur von den Straßen in den Gerichtssaal getragen. Continue reading >>16 November 2020