CJEU Rules On Copyright Protection In The Online Environment

Recently the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued an important ruling for copyright holders, providers of online platforms and intermediaries dealing with copyright protection in the online environment. In Brein v. Ziggo and XS4ALL, the CJEU ruled that – in certain circumstances – the making available and management on the internet of a platform, such as 'The Pirate Bay', which allows users of that platform (in the context of a peer-to-peer network) to locate and share protected works without the consent of the right holders, may constitute copyright infringement. This conclusion is remarkable, mainly because there are no protected works on the 'The Pirate Bay' (TPB) website, as these works are stored on the computers of the website's users. The CJEU marks the TPB's role in the filesharing process as being so essential that the mere making available and management of the platform falls under the acts that are reserved to the right holders in the Copyright