Mega and Other File-Hosting Services’ Blockade is Overbroad, Italian Authorities Say
By Giancarlo Frosio on October 13, 2014 at 3:33 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 Giancarlo Frosio on October 13, 2014 at 3:33 am
By Giancarlo Frosio on October 7, 2014 at 12:17 am
Recently, a European national court applied for the first time the Google Spain ruling of the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”). The Court of Amsterdam dealt with one of the “right to be forgotten” requests that Google refused to comply with by rejecting the claims of the plaintiff and reinforcing the role of freedom of speech. Read more about First Application of Google Spain by a National Court in Europe: the Right to be Forgotten Gets Reduced in the Netherlands
By Giancarlo Frosio on September 28, 2014 at 4:19 am
A few days ago, an Italian administrative Tribunal referred to the Italian Constitutional Court a question regarding the constitutionality of the Italian Communication Authority's ('AGCOM') Regulation on Online Copyright Infringement (“Regulati Read more about Italian Constitutional Court to Decide Whether Administrative Enforcement of Online Copyright Infringement is Constitutional
By Giancarlo Frosio on September 23, 2014 at 5:53 pm
Recently, the Court of Appeal of New Zealand decided Christopher Robert Murray And Ors v Ian Wishart and ruled that a third party publisher - the owner of a Facebook page that contained comments by others - was not liable for defamation without actual knowledge, overturning a previous 'ought to have known' test. Read more about New Zealand Court of Appeal Found a Facebook Page Owner Not Liable for Defamatory Comments Posted by Others