Dutch Supreme Court refers piracy questions to CJEU

While the appeal court said that NSE didn’t need to install a filter, it did find that NSE was obliged to implement an effective notice-and-takedown procedure.

BREIN  appealed against the judgment in early 2017 to the Supreme Court of the Netherlands. The anti-piracy organisation claimed that the appeal court’s decision was an “error”.

In an order last week, the Supreme Court asked the CJEU to consider the role and liability of Usenet providers, such as NSE.

The Supreme Court has asked whether NSE is communicating to the public and whether it is liable for its users’ copyright infringements.

If NSE is found not to be communicating to the public, the court has asked whether the Usenet provider is playing an active role that would make it liable for copyright infringements.

Finally, the Supreme Court has asked for clarity on whether the Usenet provider is required to do anything if it is shielded from liability.

The Supreme Court also made reference to article 13 (now article 17) of the new EU Copyright Directive, which is awaiting approval by the Council of Ministers.

Under the article, online content providers will need to obtain licences from rights owners. According to the Supreme Court, it’s unclear how this should be taken into account.

This story was first published on TBO.

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