EMI v. UPC

ct89

Hi all,
Im looking for some commentary (in journals) regarding the UPC case, so far ive found a few in the entertainment law review, the gazette, and CLP, but cant seem to find any more? can anyone help with this it would be much appreciated!

Tom Young

The case is published on www.courts.ie

The main gist of the finding was that the Court was limited by the fact that the plaintiff sought injunctive relief/s pursuant to the Copyright and Related Acts 2000, Sections 17 and Section 40.4. The infringement reliefs were to be transposed by way of Secondary Legislation in terms of an EU Directive and national regulations from the Minister. If the Court was correct, then this was not done correctly. If the Court was wrong then we won't know as no appeal has been lodged at this time.

Most of the Judgment rehearses property rights issues and issues surrounding infringers, etc.

The Irish Times had a related article by Karlin Lillington today in re. Copyright SIs.

The main defence from UPC was that of mere conduit further to S.I. No. 68/2003 — European Communities (Directive 2000/31/EC) Regulations 2003, Regulation 16.

(1) An intermediary service provider shall not be liable for information transmitted by him or her in a communication network if —

(a) the information has been provided to him or her by a recipient of a relevant service provided by him or her (being a service consisting of the transmission in a communication network of that information), or

(b) a relevant service provided by him or her consists of the provision of access to a communication network,

and, in either case, the following conditions are complied with —

(i) the intermediary service provider did not initiate the transmission,

(ii) the intermediary service provider did not select the receiver of the transmission, and

(iii) the intermediary service provider did not select or modify the information contained in the transmission.

(2) References in paragraph (1) to an act of transmission and of provision of access include references to the automatic, intermediate and transient storage of the information transmitted in so far as this takes place for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission in the communications network, and provided that the information is not stored for any period longer than is reasonably necessary for the transmission.

(3) This Regulation shall not affect the power of any court to make an order against an intermediary service provider requiring the provider not to infringe, or to cease to infringe, any legal rights.

This case is different to the EMI v eircom case. eircom settled (heaven knows why, probably as they were 'for sale' at the time) and consented to 'three strikes'. That was re-entered to the Courts and ruled separately.

Tom

krd

Would UPC be under any obligation to EMI, if EMI had been informing them their network was being used to infringe copyright on their material.

Say

The way the European directive puts it, it would seem the ISP has about as much responsibility for piracy as the manufactures of recordable CDs.

The driver behind the sales of recordable CDs was piracy. The CD manufactures may as well have been banging out duplications of copyrighted works. ISPs have made the same kind of bootlegging profits from copyright infringement.

I can't see how the ISPs are not doing something wrong by allowing piracy and indirectly profiting from it.

(3) This Regulation shall not affect the power of any court to make an order against an intermediary service provider requiring the provider not to infringe, or to cease to infringe, any legal rights.

So it's down to the court to determine if there's an infringement?

TJM

The Irish litigation is to some extent secondary. The most important ruling in this area will be the forthcoming decision of the ECJ in SABAM v. Tiscali, which will address the difficult interrelationship between the IPRED, E-Commerce Directive and InfoSoc Directive in the context of filtering. The 1709 Blog has a good assessment of the issues. While not directly dealing with three strikes, I would expect the outcome in SABAM v. Tiscali to be influential if not determinative on this point also.

Octavarium

Hi all,

I'm doing a college project on the European Communities (Directive 2000/31/ec) and will be using this case.

Can anyone point me in the direction of a case which also involves this directive, and is of equal importance?

Thanks,
Callum

Tom Young

Mulvaney v The Sporting Exchange t/a. Betfair

Tom Young

2000/31/EC was transposed into Irish law by SI 68 of 2003.

CJEU cases:

Google France, Google Inc. v Louis Vuitton Malletier Case Reference C‑236/08;
Scarlet vs SABAM, Case Reference C-70/10;
L'Oréal v eBay [2009] EWHC 1094 (Ch) - C-324/09;
Sabam v Netlog Case Reference C-360/10.

UK:

Bunt v Tilley.

There are some others.

Victor

krd wrote: »

The driver behind the sales of recordable CDs was piracy. The CD manufactures may as well have been banging out duplications of copyrighted works.

I have many CDs, typically stuff that I have downloaded, with permission and stuff I want to back-up. I have never made a CD of music or shared such a CD.

ISPs have made the same kind of bootlegging profits from copyright infringement.

I can't see how the ISPs are not doing something wrong by allowing piracy and indirectly profiting from it.

I think you need to separate ISP from hosts - they aren't the same thing.

In this image, just to receive a small few packets of information, you will you many parts of the internet - which do you hold responsible for copyright breach?



By the way, I claim copyright on this image, your aren't allowed download it.