transparency requirements for ISPs, commercial communications, and electronic contracts. 19 The 2001 Directive on Copyright and Related Rights gives authors, performers,
and film producers the sole right to reproduce and distribute their respective writings,
performances, sound recordings, and films. 20 And the 2004 Directive on the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights aims to harmonize intellectual property protection
regimes across the EU and allows member states’ judges to issue injunctions against
ongoing or impending intellectual property violations. 21 None of these directives
have mandated the use of filtering technologies to protect intellectual property
regimes. However, where the EU has been slow to respond to the demands of the film
and music industry, individual countries have been more proactive. In 2007, a Danish
court ordered the country’s largest ISP to block Allofmp3.com, a Web site offering
illegal music downloads. 22 In March 2007, Bulgarian police arrested the owner of
Arenabg.com, one of Bulgaria’s largest BitTorrent trackers, and blocked the Web site
for four days. 23 Most seriously, in June 2008, France established the High Authority
for Copyright Protection and Dissemination of Works on the Internet to monitor
Internet content for illegal file sharing and eventually suspend the Internet connections of repeat file sharers. 24
European courts have been skeptical of claims to fair use of copyrighted content. In
February 2007, a court in Brussels found that Google, Inc., had violated the copyrights
of Copiepresse, a Belgian newspaper consortium. The court ruled that by taking headlines and short news extracts from Copiepresse’s newspapers, Google’s news feature
illegally allowed Internet users to read articles without paying proper subscription fees
and without viewing the advertisements on Copiepresse’s sites. The court fined Google
GBP 2.4 million and prohibited it from sampling Copiepresse members’ articles, pictures, or drawings. 25 The court also required that Google remove, within 24 hours,
any future content that copyright holders said infringed on its rights, or pay a fine of
EUR 1,000 per day. 26 Google had similar fair use problems in France when Agence
France-Presse (AFP) sued the company for USD 17.5 million in 2005. The suit was
dropped in April 2007, following a licensing agreement under which Google could
use stories and photographs from AFP for its news aggregator and for other Google
services. The financial terms of this arrangement have not been publicly disclosed. 27
Overall, where the EU has hesitated to take aggressive action on intellectual property
regime enforcement, individual states have been eager to step in, enforcing the laws
of their individual regimes on companies both inside and outside their borders.
A controversial Internet piracy bill was adopted by the French Parliament in March
2009. According to the so-called three-strikes bill, the French government will launch a
new agency, HADOPI (High Authority for the Diffusion of Works and the Protection of
Rights on the Internet), that would assess whether a suspect is guilty of having violated
copyright provisions when downloading material online. If it is determined that the
user violated a copyright provision, he or she would receive a warning, followed by a
suspension of Internet access for a maximum of 12 months if he or she did
282
Europe Overview
and film producers the sole right to reproduce and distribute their respective writings,
performances, sound recordings, and films. 20 And the 2004 Directive on the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights aims to harmonize intellectual property protection
regimes across the EU and allows member states’ judges to issue injunctions against
ongoing or impending intellectual property violations. 21 None of these directives
have mandated the use of filtering technologies to protect intellectual property
regimes. However, where the EU has been slow to respond to the demands of the film
and music industry, individual countries have been more proactive. In 2007, a Danish
court ordered the country’s largest ISP to block Allofmp3.com, a Web site offering
illegal music downloads. 22 In March 2007, Bulgarian police arrested the owner of
Arenabg.com, one of Bulgaria’s largest BitTorrent trackers, and blocked the Web site
for four days. 23 Most seriously, in June 2008, France established the High Authority
for Copyright Protection and Dissemination of Works on the Internet to monitor
Internet content for illegal file sharing and eventually suspend the Internet connections of repeat file sharers. 24
European courts have been skeptical of claims to fair use of copyrighted content. In
February 2007, a court in Brussels found that Google, Inc., had violated the copyrights
of Copiepresse, a Belgian newspaper consortium. The court ruled that by taking headlines and short news extracts from Copiepresse’s newspapers, Google’s news feature
illegally allowed Internet users to read articles without paying proper subscription fees
and without viewing the advertisements on Copiepresse’s sites. The court fined Google
GBP 2.4 million and prohibited it from sampling Copiepresse members’ articles, pictures, or drawings. 25 The court also required that Google remove, within 24 hours,
any future content that copyright holders said infringed on its rights, or pay a fine of
EUR 1,000 per day. 26 Google had similar fair use problems in France when Agence
France-Presse (AFP) sued the company for USD 17.5 million in 2005. The suit was
dropped in April 2007, following a licensing agreement under which Google could
use stories and photographs from AFP for its news aggregator and for other Google
services. The financial terms of this arrangement have not been publicly disclosed. 27
Overall, where the EU has hesitated to take aggressive action on intellectual property
regime enforcement, individual states have been eager to step in, enforcing the laws
of their individual regimes on companies both inside and outside their borders.
A controversial Internet piracy bill was adopted by the French Parliament in March
2009. According to the so-called three-strikes bill, the French government will launch a
new agency, HADOPI (High Authority for the Diffusion of Works and the Protection of
Rights on the Internet), that would assess whether a suspect is guilty of having violated
copyright provisions when downloading material online. If it is determined that the
user violated a copyright provision, he or she would receive a warning, followed by a
suspension of Internet access for a maximum of 12 months if he or she did
282
Europe Overview