Brazilian Supreme Court Adopts Common Law Tests for Intermediary Liability in Copyright Case
By Felipe Busnello and Giancarlo Frosio on June 24, 2015 at 2:28 am
Whether and when communications platforms like Google, Twitter and Facebook are liable for their users’ online activities is one of the key factors that affects innovation and free speech. Most creative expression today takes place over communications networks owned by private companies. Governments around the world increasingly press intermediaries to block their users’ undesirable online content in order to suppress dissent, hate speech, privacy violations and the like. One form of pressure is to make communications intermediaries legally responsible for what their users do and say. Liability regimes that put platform companies at legal risk for users’ online activity are a form of censorship-by-proxy, and thereby imperil both free expression and innovation, even as governments seek to resolve very real policy problems.
In the United States, the core doctrines of section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act have allowed these online intermediary platforms user generated content to flourish. But, immunities and safe harbors for intermediaries are under threat in the U.S. and globally as governments seek to deputize intermediaries to assist in law enforcement.
To contribute to this important policy debate, CIS studies international approaches to intermediary obligations concerning users’ copyright infringement, defamation, hate speech or other vicarious liabilities, immunities, or safe harbors; publishes a repository of information on international liability regimes and works with global platforms and free expression groups to advocate for policies that will protect innovation, freedom of expression, privacy and other user rights.
By Felipe Busnello and Giancarlo Frosio on June 24, 2015 at 2:28 am
By Giancarlo Frosio on June 23, 2015 at 12:36 am
A few days ago, the Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertés (CNiL), the French data protection authority, ordered Google to apply the right to be forgotten (RTBF) on all domain names of Google's search engine, including the .com domain. Read more about French Privacy Authority Orders Google to Delist RTBF Infringing Results Worldwide
By Giancarlo Frosio on June 16, 2015 at 7:58 pm
Today, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) delivered a long-awaited decision in Delphi AS v. Estonia. Read more about Delfi Reloaded: The ECHR Confirms that Internet News Portals Are Liable for User-Generated Defamatory Comments
By Daphne Keller on June 15, 2015 at 1:19 am
Policymakers around the world are showing renewed interest in the rules that govern Internet information flow across national borders. Read more about Global Content Regulation and Jurisdiction: Who Decides?