The growing tension between copyright and personal data protection on an online environment: The position of Internet Service Providers according to the European Court of Justice
Abstract
Online piracy is one of the most interesting, complex and topical issues relating to copyright today. It is engaging because it appeals to academics as much as it does to the general public, and it is as crucial for the governments as it is for the stakeholders involved. Moreover, from a legal perspective, it presents a multitude of interesting aspects to explore.
This paper focuses on the specific issue of the tension between enforcement of intellectual property (IP) rights and personal data protection on the internet. More specifically, the position of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in the battle against online piracy is examined, by reviewing the current status of ISPs and attempting an evaluation of the latest developments on the subject.
Although online piracy is a global issue, the present analysis is limited within the European Union, reviewing the policies adopted by the EU institutions and bodies, discussing existing and proposed measures adopted by the Member States and focusing specifically on two cases brought before the European Court of Justice, namely the Promusicae (C-157/06) and Scarlet (C-70-10) cases.
Published
Issue
Section
License
EJLT is an open access journal, aiming to disseminate academic work and perspectives as widely as possible to the benefit of the author and the author’s readers. It is the assumption of the EJLT that authors who publish in the journal wish their work to be available as freely and as widely as possible through the open access publishing channel.
Authors who publish with EJLT will retain copyright and moral rights in the underlying work but will grant all users the rights to copy, store and print for non-commercial use copies of their work. Commercial mirroring may also be carried out with the consent of the journal. The work must remain as published – without redaction or editing – and must clearly state the identity of the author and the originating EJLT url of the article. Any commercial use of the author’s work - apart from mirroring - requires the permission of the author and any aspects of the article which are the property of EJLT (e.g. typographical format) requires permission from EJLT.
Authors can sometimes become no longer contactable (through, for example, death or retirement). If this occurs, any rights in the work will pass to the European Journal of Law and Technology which will continue to make the work available in as wide a manner as possible to achieve the aims of open access and ensuring that an author's work continues to be available. An author - or their estate - can recover these rights from EJLT by providing contact information.
The European Journal of Law and Technology holds rights in format, publication and dissemination.
EJLT, as a non-commercial organisation - which receives donations to allow it to continue publishing – must retain information on reader access to journal articles. This means that we will not give permission to mirror the journal unless we can be provided with full details as to reader access to each and every journal article. We prefer and encourage deep linking rather than mirroring. Encouragement is thus given for all users – commercial and non-commercial – to provide indexes and links to articles in the EJLT where the index or link points to the location of the article on the EJLT server, rather than to stored copies on other servers.
Please contact the European Journal of Law and Technology if you are in any doubt as to what this statement of use covers.