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11 July 2020

The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg ordered that video hosting providers are not obliged to provide the right holders with e-mail and IP addresses of the users illegally publishing pirated content. This is stated in a press-release posted on the Court’s official web-site on Thursday.

“When a movie is illegally uploaded to an online platform such as YouTube, the right holder may only request the operator’s mailing address, but not his / her IP and e-mail addresses or a phone number, as stated in the Directive on Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights”, highlighted the press service.

Such a decision has been adopted after the representatives of the German Court appealed to the EU Court concerning the case of illegal publication of the films “Parker” (2012) and “Scary Movie 5” (2013) on YouTube in 2013-2014. The distribution rights to them belonged to Constantin Film Verleih GmbH. Initially, the film distributor requested from Google, which owns the video hosting, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, and IP addresses of users who uploaded the movies on YouTube. After the corporation refused to provide this data, they went to court.

According to the Directive of the European Union “On Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights” of April 29, 2004, judicial authorities can require the provision of information about copyright infringers, in particular their names and addresses.

Based on the TASS materials.


Photo: Panumas Nikhomkhai
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