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LEGISLATION

Law No. 09-08 on the protection of physical persons regarding the processing of personal data, (published in Official Journal on) March 5, 2009 [According to the Law No. 09-08, the personal data must be processed lawfully and faithfully, collected for defined, explicit and legitimate purposes, adequate, accurate and kept for a period of time proportional to the purpose for which they are collected. On 21 May 2009, Decree No. 2-09-165 for the application of the Law No. 09-08 on the protection of physical persons regarding the processing of personal data was adopted.] Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between Morocco and the United Sates (MUSFTA), signed on June 15, 2004, entered into force on January 1, 2006 (Chapter 15, Intellectual Property Rights, Article 15.11.28. Limitations on Liability for Service Providers) [This FTA contains provisions and side letters on intermediary liability, safe harbours and notice and taken down. Article 15.11.28 of the MUSFTA provides that: For the purpose of providing enforcement procedures that permit effective action against any act of infringement of copyright covered under this Chapter, including expeditious remedies to prevent infringements and criminal and civil remedies, each Party shall provide, consistent with the framework set forth in this Article: (a) legal incentives for service providers to cooperate with copyright owners in deterring the unauthorized storage and transmission of copyrighted materials; and  (b) limitations in its law regarding the scope of remedies available against service providers for copyright infringements that they do not control, initiate or direct, and that take place through systems or networks controlled or operated by them or on their behalf, as set forth in this subparagraph (b).

• (i) These limitations shall preclude monetary relief and provide reasonable restrictions on court-ordered relief to compel or restrain certain actions for the following functions and shall be confined to those functions: (A) transmitting, routing, or providing connections for material without modification of its content, or the intermediate and transient storage of such material in the course thereof; (B) caching carried out through an automatic process; (C) storage at the direction of a user of material residing on a system or network controlled or operated by or for the service provider; and (D) referring or linking users to an online location by using information location tools, including hyperlinks and directories.
• (ii) These limitations shall apply only where the service provider does not initiate the chain of transmission of the material, and does not select the material or its recipients (except to the extent that a function described in clause (i)(D) in itself entails some form of selection).
• (iii) Qualification by a service provider for the limitations as to each function in clauses (i)(A) through (i)(D) shall be considered separately from qualification for the limitations as to each other function, in accordance with the conditions for qualification set forth in clauses (iv) – (vii).] [See also MUSFTA, Side Letter on Internet Service Providers; MUSFTA, Response Letter on Internet Service Providers] Law No. 03-03 regarding anti-terrorism, May 28, 2003 [(1) The law provides authorities with legal powers to filter and delete content that is deemed to “disrupt public order by intimidation, force, violence, fear or terror.” (2) Article 218-5 assigns legal liability to the author and anybody who in any way helps the author to disseminate the apology for acts of terrorism, a provision which would include site owners and ISPs. (3) Intermediaries must block or delete infringing content when made aware of it or upon receipt of a court order.] Law No. 24-96 on Postal and Telecommunications, (published in Official Journal on) September 18, 1997 [(1) Article 92 punishes by a prison sentence and a fine every person, legal or natural, operating in the telecommunications sector that violated the secrecy of emitted, transmitted or received correspondences through the telecommunications network. (2) It created the National Telecommunications Regulatory Agency (ANRT) that regulates telecoms and implements blocking orders in Morocco.]
• ANRT Decision No. 12-14 concerning the modalities of administrative, technical and commercial management of domain names (.ma), November 21, 2014 [According too Article 14 of ANRT Decision No. 12-14, the registrar has the obligation to inform the registrant about the provisions of the present Decision, the alternative dispute resolution procedure for ‘.ma’ and also to make sure that the registrant comply with all the requirements set by the present Decision. The registrant is also in charge of the update of the Whois information contained in the register for ‘.ma’.]
• Ministerial Order No. 977-08 fixing the modalities of promotion of telecommunication services, June 3, 2008 [Articles 3 to 6 of the Ministerial Order No. 977-08 fix the conditions and modalities to launch promotions of telecommunication services by operators of public telecommunications networks.]
• Ministerial Order No. 649-07 fixing the modalities of advertising and information of the consumer regarding telecommunication services, May 4, 2007 [Articles 3 to 8 of the Ministerial Order No. 649-07 determine the rules to respect by operators in advertising telecommunication services.]

Administrative RegulationsRegulatory Entity: National Telecommunications Regulatory Agency (ANRT) [The ANRT is the public body in charge of the control and regulation of the telecommunications sector. It was created under Law No. 24-96 (see above). ANRT has the power of legal regulation of the telecommunications sector. It is responsible for developing and enforcing technical standards of the telecommunications sector. Also, ANTR is the body in charge of enforcing blocking orders and content removals. Finally, ANRT plays an economic role in the sense that it supports fair competition of the operators in the telecommunications sector in Morocco.]

BILLS AND PENDING PROPOSALS

[There are currently no known new legislative proposals on the issue of intermediary liability.]

DECISIONS

Superior Courts

[There are currently no known superior court decisions on the issue of intermediary liability.]

Lower Courts[There are currently no known lower court decisions on the issue of intermediary liability.]  Attorney General, Lakome case, October 2013 [The Attorney General ordered the ANRT to block the Arabic - and French - language websites of the investigative news site, Lakome. Its Arabic-language editor in chief, Ali Anouzla, was arrested one month earlier for citing an article in the Spanish newspaper El País, which contained an embedded YouTube video attributed to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The website is now back online.]

OTHER RESOURCES

Moroccan Court of Cassation, www.courdecassation.ma

CONTRIBUTORS

Issam BenhssineEmail: benhssineissam at gmail.com[personal page]

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