An injunction seeking to force a social networking site to actively monitor and remove copyright infringing content shared on its network has been rejected by the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”).

SABAM, a Belgian association representing various writers, authors and composers, sought an injunction requiring Netlog NV to filter most of the content hosted on its site in order to block material which was infringing copyright. The court found that this type of obligation is prohibited by the E-Commerce Directive and would infringe on the hosting service’s right to conduct business.

This case has once again reiterated that a fair balance must be struck between the protection of copyright and the protection of the fundamental rights of the people that are affected by those measures. It was considered by the CJEU that should a general filtering system be imposed, the fundamental rights of the Netlog users to the protection of personal data and the right of freedom to impart or receive information would be infringed upon as well. Therefore, the introduction of a filtering system that would process these individuals’ data would not be an appropriate balance between the various conflicting interests.

The CJEU also recently decided, in a similar case involving Sabam, that the imposition of filtering systems on ISPs in order to prevent unlawful file sharing was not permissible under EU law and much of the same reasoning utilised by the court in that case has been applied here. This case will no doubt be seen as another setback for rights holders following on from the recent withdrawal of the SOPA legislation in the US.

With a growing opposition to the Irish Government’s proposed Statutory Instrument on copyright regulation, which aims to grant rights holders the power to apply for similar injunctions, both sides of the debate eagerly await clarification on how the recent SABAM decisions will be interpreted by the Irish courts.

Contributed by Leo Moore and John Farrell