YouTube Covered by The Hosting Safe Harbour

Great news! Google has won a long standing lawsuit - Viacom v. YouTube. Southern District Court of New York has affirmed that DMCA safe harbours have been intended to cover such service as YouTube. Huťko guess that most of us expected the ruling in favour of Google. E.g. I am pretty sure about prof. Giovanni Riccio as I vividly remember his message delivered at Cyberspace 2009.

For everybody not familiar with the case, Huťko strongly recommends this great panel discussion.

And now, finally the judgement! For IPKat´s outstanding coverage click here.
Viacom v YouTube Summary Judgment

Misleading Ad Copy Examples

Last week Huťko successfully finished his IP distance learning course in order to get to WIPO´s Summer School in Geneva. Inspired by course Huťko decided to share two really nice food examples that were included in the unfair competition module.

Dear readers, would you consider following to be misleading according to your national laws?

Example 1

If chemical ingredients is generally forbidden in bread, would you consider an advertising claim that a certain bread "was without chemical ingredients" to be deceptive, though literally true?

Example 2

When an ad claims that a slice of bread from one type of loaf has fewer calories than a slice from a different type of loaf, while this is solely due to the fact that it is thinner.

What a lovely examples Huťko says!

International framework is set in article 10bis (3) of the Paris Convention. The acts which, in particular, shall be prohibited:

... indications or allegations the use of which in the course of trade is liable to mislead the public as to the nature, the manufacturing process, the characteristics, the suitability for their purpose, or the quantity, of the goods.

Search Engine´s Liability by BGH

Huťko assumes that all of his readers are familiar with the case Vorschaubilder I ZR 69/08 handed down by German BGH last month. The case deals predominantly with the copyright issues of the Google´s image search. Inspite of that, this short remark is aimed to address the search engine´s liability part of judgment. Firstly, some flavour of authenticity in German.

Soweit Vorschaubilder von Bildersuchmaschinen Abbildungen von Werken erfassen, die - wie im Streitfall - von dem betreffenden Urheber oder mit seiner Zustimmung in das Internet eingestellt worden sind, wird damit dem allgemeinen Interesse an der Tätigkeit von Bildersuchmaschinen in dem gebo-tenen Maße bei der Auslegung der Erklärungen Rechnung getragen, die im Zu-sammenhang mit dem Einstellen solcher Abbildungen auf den jeweiligen Inter-netseiten der Allgemeinheit gegenüber abgegeben werden. In dem - hier nicht zu entscheidenden - Fall, dass Bilder von dazu nicht berechtigten Personen eingestellt werden, kann der Betreiber der Bildersuchmaschine zwar aus deren Verhalten keine Berechtigung für einen Eingriff in Urheberrechte Dritter herlei-ten. In einem solchen Fall kommt jedoch in Betracht, dass die Haftung des Betreibers der Suchmaschine auf solche Verstöße beschränkt ist, die begangen werden, nachdem er auf eine klare Rechtsverletzung hingewiesen worden ist (vgl. BGHZ 158, 236, 252 - Internet-Versteigerung I; 173, 188 Tz. 42 - Jugend-gefährdende Medien bei eBay; BGH, Urt. v. 19.4.2007 - I ZR 35/04, GRUR 2007, 708 Tz. 45 = WRP 2007, 964 - Internet-Versteigerung II; Urt. v. 30.4.2008 - I ZR 73/05, GRUR 2008, 702 Tz. 51 = WRP 2008, 1104 - Internet-Verstei-gerung III).

Die Möglichkeit einer solchen Haftungsbeschränkung bei der Bereit-stellung von Informationen in Suchmaschinen für den Zugriff durch Dritte folgt aus Art. 14 Abs. 1 der Richtlinie 2000/31/EG über den elektronischen Rechts-verkehr. Art. 14 Abs. 1 der Richtlinie 2000/31/EG ist auf die Bereitstellung der Dienstleistungen von Suchmaschinen anwendbar, wenn die betreffende Tätig-keit des Suchmaschinenbetreibers rein technischer, automatischer und passiver Art ist und er weder Kenntnis noch Kontrolle über die von ihm gespeicherte oder weitergeleitete Information besitzt (EuGH, Urt. v. 23.3.2010 - C-236/08 bis C-238/08 Tz. 114 - Google France/Louis Vuitton). Liegen diese Voraussetzun-gen vor, deren - dem nationalen Gericht obliegender (EuGH aaO Tz. 119 - Google France/Louis Vuitton) - Feststellung es im Streitfall für die Bildersuche der Beklagten mangels Entscheidungserheblichkeit nicht bedarf, kommt eine Haftung des Suchmaschinenbetreibers erst in Betracht, nachdem er von der Rechtswidrigkeit der gespeicherten Information Kenntnis erlangt hat (EuGH aaO Tz. 109 - Google France/Louis Vuitton). Ein solcher die Haftung auslösen-der Hinweis auf eine Urheberrechtsverletzung muss ihm auch über die urheber-rechtliche Berechtigung der Beteiligten hinreichende Klarheit verschaffen.

Now Mr. Google Translate helps us.

In such a case is however considered that the liability of the operator of the search engine is limited to violations committed after it has been pointed to a clear violation of the law (See. BGHZ 158, 236, 252 - Internet-Versteigerung I; 173, 188 Tz. 42 - Jugend-gefährdende Medien bei eBay; BGH, Urt. v. 19.4.2007 - I ZR 35/04, GRUR 2007, 708 Tz. 45 = WRP 2007, 964 - Internet-Versteigerung II; Urt. v. 30.4.2008 - I ZR 73/05, GRUR 2008, 702 Tz. 51 = WRP 2008, 1104 - Internet-Verstei-gerung III). The possibility of such liability for the provision of information in search engines for access by third parties follows from Article 14 paragraph 1 of Directive 2000/31/EC on electronic commerce. Article 14 paragraph 1 of Directive 2000/31/EC is applicable to the provision of services of search engines, if that activity-speed of the search engine company is purely technical, automatic and passive nature, and stored it has neither knowledge nor control over by him or transmitted information (has ECJ, Judgement of 23.3.2010 - C-236/08 and C-238/08 para. 114 - Google France / Louis Vuitton). If these condi-tions in which - the competent national court (ECJ op para. 119 - Google France / Louis Vuitton) - Identification is not required in case of dispute for the image search of the defendant's lack of relevance, any liability of the search engine company is only considered after he became aware of the illegality of the information stored knowledge (ECJ op para. 109 - Google France / Louis Vuitton).

Just a quick reminder of e-commerce directive hosting safe harbor.

Article 14 (Hosting)

1. Where an information society service is provided that consists of the storage of information provided by a recipient of the service, Member States shall ensure that the service provider is not liable for the information stored at the request of a recipient of the service, on condition that:

(a) the provider does not have actual knowledge of illegal activity or information and, as regards claims for damages, is not aware of facts or circumstances from which the illegal activity or information is apparent; or

(b) the provider, upon obtaining such knowledge or awareness, acts expeditiously to remove or to disable access to the information.

2. Paragraph 1 shall not apply when the recipient of the service is acting under the authority or the control of the provider.

3. This Article shall not affect the possibility for a court or administrative authority, in accordance with Member States' legal systems, of requiring the service provider to terminate or prevent an infringement, nor does it affect the possibility for Member States of establishing procedures governing the removal or disabling of access to information.

And my remarks

Organic search, e.g. image search is not the storage of information provided by recipient as it is not directly provided (submitted) by anybody. Google indexes the internet without asking for content provider´s permission. Hence organic search can not directly qualify for the hosting safe harbor. Referring to Google v. Louis Vuitton

is strange to me as it is not the case about the organic search. But the anorganic (sponsored) one which works in a different way. On the other hand, if Germany has established the case law that organic search should be treated in a same way as the hosting services (applying analogy), it gives

me much more understanding of the whole case. I have already heard that LG Berlin 27 O 585/04, LG Berlin 27 O 45/05, LG Hamburg O 755/03 have applied the hosting safe harbour by analogy to search engines. Nevertheless I haven´t read these cases and just bumped directly to this summarizing statement.

If any of Huťko´s skilled readers is familiar with the following cases or articles from GRUR, please let me know.

See. BGHZ 158, 236, 252 - Internet-Versteigerung I; 173, 188 Tz. 42 - Jugend- gefährdende Medien bei eBay; BGH, Urt. v. 19.4.2007 - I ZR 35/04, GRUR 2007, 708 Tz. 45 = WRP 2007, 964 - Internet-Versteigerung II; Urt. v. 30.4.2008 - I ZR 73/05, GRUR 2008, 702 Tz. 51 = WRP 2008, 1104 - Internet-Verstei-gerung III

The only other thing I can think of is that maybe the notion of provided by recipient is being broaden enough to cover organic search. But this seems to me unlikely. Anyway, I am going to Hannover for Summer School next month and I will definitely kindly ask them to clarify this for me :)

The Blog About Spanish Case Law

Huťko has recieved very delighting email from prof. Dr. Miquel Peguera, PhD. this morning. Mr. Peguera has launched the english version of his information-rich blog focusing on Spanish case law on the ISP liability. Huťko is reading this blog on the regular basis using the Google Translate tool as his Spanish is unfortunately limited to few and not really useful words :). The blog comments a case law development in Spain and does it in a really up-to-date way. Spain is the country of the numerous famous cases from the e-commerce field. Consider cases such as Promusicae C-275/06, SGAE v. Padawan C-467/08, Palomo v. Google or Megakini.com.

Huťko strongly encourage all of his readers to add this blog to their RSS.

The First Czech Ruling Involving the Hosting Safe Harbour

As unbelievable as this may sound, Slovakia and Czech republic still does not have any case law on the liability of ISPs (at least as far as I know). Fortunately, this is about to change. City Court of Prague delivered it´s first instance ruling (10 Cm 47/2009-39) concerning the liability of ISP for the third party comments on it´s article (hosting). The case was brought to Huťko´s attention by Dr. Janák from the Faculty of Law of University West Bohemia in Pilsen (big thanks for reporting to the community).

The dispute is about an estate agency claiming the interference with it´s goodwill by publishing the third party comments below respondent´s article and maintaining them after the proper notification from the claimant. Hence dispute is more about the free speech v. goodwill rights than tremendous peculiarities of information society service providers liability.

Claimant demanded 50,000.- CZK (equal to 1,950.- EUR) and the removal of the said discussion thread. The court ruled that the entire discussion thread should be removed, but dismissed the claim for the adequate satisfaction in money. To me it´s quite disproportional in a way that not the whole thread was infringing in this case. On the other hand, I don´t agree with the respondent that this ruling extends the liability of the ISP in some, to me unspecified, way. Basically this is exactly what each auction site or e-shop have to deal with when enabling it´s users to submit review of the product or service.

Concerning the free speech v. goodwill analysis it would be probably much longer article and I still have a pending state exam :)

Said claim is based on the section 19b of Czech Civil Code.

(1) Legal entities shall have their name; the name must be specified at the moment of their establishment.
(2) Should the name of a legal entity be used unlawfully, the legal entity may demand with a court that the unlawful user omits the use and remove irregular state; the legal entity may
also demand an adequate satisfaction that may be required even in money.
(3) The provision of paragraph 2 shall adequately apply to an unlawful infringement of goodwill of a legal entity.

The ruling was already appealed to the High Court (please note this is not the Supreme Court).