{"id":65398,"date":"2022-06-28T09:01:13","date_gmt":"2022-06-28T09:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/?p=65398"},"modified":"2022-06-28T09:01:13","modified_gmt":"2022-06-28T09:01:13","slug":"supreme-court-file-sharing-platform-must-block-search-terms-to-stop-piracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/?p=65398","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court: File-Sharing Platform Must Block Search Terms to Stop Piracy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ulozTo the global audience Ulo\u017e.to<\/a> may not be a household name but in the Czech Republic, it is huge.<\/p>\n

The file-sharing and hosting service has millions of users and is listed among the 40 most-visited websites in the country. In addition, its mobile apps are frequently used as well.<\/p>\n

Like many other file storage platforms, Ulo\u017e can be used to share a wide variety of files but, according to copyright holders, many people abuse the platform to share pirated music, movies, and TV shows.<\/p>\n

Filter Battle in Court<\/h2>\n

Similar to YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, Uloz removes infringing content when it receives takedown notices but Czech anti-piracy group Dilia<\/a> believes that the procedure doesn\u2019t go far enough. <\/p>\n

Representing several rightsholders, Dilia took Uloz to court, successfully requesting far-reaching anti-piracy filters. In 2019, a Prague court ruled that the file-sharing site must block searches for several film-related terms. <\/p>\n

Uloz was not pleased with this decision. The company complained that these types of filters pose a threat to the free Internet since they lead to overbroad censorship. To prevent this, Uloz fought the issue all the way up to the Supreme Court. <\/p>\n

Rightsholders, meanwhile, were not satisfied either. They requested more far-reaching measures from the file-sharing platform, instead of tailored filters for a subset of keywords. <\/p>\n

Supreme Court Affirms Piracy Filters<\/h2>\n

After hearing the arguments from both sides, last week the Supreme Court decided<\/a> to keep the lower court\u2019s ruling intact. This means that Uloz must continue to filter searches for a list of \u201cforbidden words\u201d and block downloads of related movies.<\/p>\n

The highlighted movies are all local titles and include \u201cPel\u00ed\u0161k\u016f\u201d (Cosy Dens), \u201cKobry a u\u017eovky\u201d (The Snake Brothers), \u201cOst\u0159e sledovan\u00e9 vlaky\u201d (Closely Watched Trains), \u201cVesni\u010dko m\u00e1 st\u0159ediskov\u00e1\u201d (My Sweet Little Village), \u201cS \u010derty nejsou \u017eerty\u201d (Give the Devil His Due) and \u201cObu\u0161ku, z pytle ven\u201d (Stick, Start Beating!).<\/p>\n

There is some silver lining for Uloz as well. The Supreme Court rejected the rightsholders\u2019 argument that the service is liable for the infringements of its users. More far-reaching anti-piracy measures were also rejected.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mere fact that a provider of a file storage service is generally aware that works are unlawfully made available through its service [\u2026] is not sufficient to conclude that the service provider acts to participate in individual copyright offenses,\u201d the Court found.<\/p>\n

That said, if rightsholders point out specific instances of infringement, Uloz has to take action. In this case it must use technical measures to prevent people from finding and downloading the six films.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter all, such technological measures currently exist and [\u2026] are capable of detecting repeatedly unauthorized storage and access to files containing works or objects of copyright-related rights,\u201d the judges write.<\/p>\n

\u201cCensored\u201d<\/h2>\n

When we search for one of the six film titles on Uloz today, we see the following error message. \u201cThe search for this term was censored by a decision of the court.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"uloz<\/center><\/p>\n

Uloz respects the Supreme Court\u2019s decision, which confirms that it\u2019s a legitimate business. However, the file-sharing platform believes that the filter requirements go too far and will lead to censorship.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe agree with a significant part of the court\u2019s ruling. The judgment once again confirmed that it works in full compliance with Czech and European law. Many of Dilia\u2019s charges were correctly dismissed during the trial,\u201d Uloz says.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, one part of the verdict is, in our opinion and judged by our experts, still in conflict with freedom of speech and introduces disproportionate censorship.\u201d<\/p>\n

Legal Challenge<\/h2>\n

The Supreme Court ruling is not the end of the legal battle. The file-sharing platform says that it will challenge the censorship part at the Constitutional Court. According to Uloz, the current verdict restricts people\u2019s freedom of expression, which violates the European Union\u2019s Charter of Fundamental Rights.<\/p>\n

Last year, Uloz also successfully appealed<\/a> a preliminary court order that required it to block files that contain the word \u0160arlat\u00e1n\u201d (Charlatan). At the time, the court concluded that filtering searches for a generic word goes too far. <\/p>\n

From: TF<\/a>, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.<\/p>\n

Powered by WPeMatico<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To the global audience Ulo\u017e.to may not be a household name but in the Czech Republic, it is huge. The file-sharing and hosting service has millions of users and is listed among the 40 most-visited websites in the country. In addition, its mobile apps are frequently used as well. Like many other file storage platforms, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65399,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[308],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-torrent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/65399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}