Supervisors info:
Γεώργιος Κ. Λέκκας, Αναπληρωτής Καθηγητής, Νομική Σχολή, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών,
Κωνσταντίνος Ν. Χριστοδούλου, Αναπληρωτής Καθηγητής, Νομική Σχολή, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών,
Γεώργιος Α. Γεωργιάδης, Επίκουρος Καθηγητής, Νομική Σχολή, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Summary:
Articles 12 to 15 of Directive 2000/31 on e-commerce, transposed into national law via the presidential decree No 131/2003 (Articles 11 to 14), constitute the first EU regulation aimed at ensuring an horizontal exemption from all types of liability of specific categories of Internet service providers (ISP’s), namely, mere conduit, caching and hosting providers, for illegal content which is disseminated via their network or stored in it by third parties. The liability exemption presupposes that ISP’s activity is of a mere technical, automatic and passive nature. ISP’s have no general obligation to monitor the information transmitted or stored, but they must act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the information, as soon as they acquire actual knowledge of the illegality of the information transmitted or stored or, as regards claims for damages, as soon as they become aware of facts or circumstances from which the illegal activity or information is apparent. In this paper, I am analyzing the liability exemption provisions of the Directive 2000/31 and of the PD 131/2003 respectively, and I am presenting a few notable judgments, ECJ judgments in particular, interpreting the aforementioned provisions. In this context, I am examining issues such as the possibility of not only claiming damages against ISP’s but also obtaining an order obliging ISP’s to take measures aimed at bringing infringement to an end/seeking to prevent further infringement and the relationship between these claims and the absence of a general control obligation. Finally, there is case law on two of the most important ISP’s categories, i.e. hyperlink providers and search engines, which are not covered by the wording of the liability exemption provisions.
Keywords:
internet service provider, ISP, intermediary, liability, exemption, illegal content, presidential decree 131/2003, directive 2000/31, hosting, caching, web cache, Host Provider, Content Provider, intermediate storage, temporary storage, mere conduit, no general obligation to monitor, termination of infringement, prevention of infringement, removal, disabling of access to information, filtering, hyperlinks, location tool services, negligence, intent, actual knowledge, information society services, search engines, proportionality, intellectual property, related rights, Google, L’ Oreal vs eBay, Delfi, Stichting Brein, Svensson, autocomplete, Google vs Louis Vuitton, adwords, McFadden vs Sony, p2p, BREIN, Scarlet vs SABAM, SABAM vs Netlog, UPC Telekabel, DMCA, Lafesse v. MySpace
