The European Union’s highest court said on Thursday that Internet service providers may have to block access to websites that infringe copyrights. […]
UPC argued that it shouldn’t be responsible for policing copyrights on a site that was completely separate from its own operations and where there was no court ruling establishing unlawful actions by its own customers. It said any blocking measures could easily be circumvented by users and would be excessively expensive.
The ECJ disagreed. The EU’s copyrights law “does not require a specific relationship between the person infringing copyright and the intermediary against whom an injunction may be issued,” it said. It also wasn’t necessary for copyright holders to prove that the protected content was actually being accessed through the providers they were targeting. […]
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