across the bar

EU Safe Harbour for ICT conduits may get dredged

by Steve - Posted 27 March 2007

In the wake of the billion $ lawsuit brought by Viacom against Youtube in the States, and the crucial question as to whether Youtube should be doing more to prevent and remove copyright infringing material posted to its website, the EU is looking at a draft law to criminalise aiding and abetting or incitement to infringe copyright-protected music, software and movies.

The draft law will effectively pass the onus onto video and file sharing sites like Youtube to take more steps to prevent infringing behaviour by users. The current position is that the onus is on the copyright owner to police infringements and to notify the site operator of unlawful behavior. Only if the site operator refuses to take down infringing material after receiving notice from the copyright owner will it be held liable.

In the Viacom case, Viacom have alleged that it is almost impossible for them to police the Youtube site effectively and that even when infringing materials are located and taken down, the user simply alters a few frames and uploads a new version which still infringes the copyright in the protected work but in new ways. Viacom believe that Youtube's owners can take further reasonable steps to prevent this.  

The draft law has been met with strong criticism from across the ICT industry in the EU.