Internet Intermediaries and the Law Applicable to Intellectual Property Infringements

The coordination between territoriality restricted intellectual property rights and the potential global reach of Internet activities has been the focus of significant attention in recent years. The liability of Internet intermediaries offering potentially global services that may facilitate infringements of intellectual property rights by others in multiple countries poses a particular challenge in that regard. At a substantive law level, significant differences remain between jurisdictions regarding secondary liability for intellectual property rights infringements and safe harbor provisions for Internet intermediaries. The present article discusses the conflict of laws aspects of the liability of Internet intermediaries in light of the recent international efforts to adopt soft law provisions on intellectual property and private international law.

Neighbourhoods Mobilise the Troops - Community Organising, Violence and Governmentality

The article reflects on the difficult relation between community work against domestic violence and local crime prevention under the conditions of the neoliberal state that cuts down on social benefits and promotes self-help, active citizenship and self-responsibility instead while at the same time restoring the punishing state with its strict regime of law-and-order. The author describes a project Tarantula - she started herself while being a social worker in Hamburg, Germany. Tarantula was aimed at strengthening social networks and the neighbours' willingness to get involved in favour of affected women. Although conceptualized as an emancipatory approach referring to community organizing in the tradition of social movements it is questionable whether and how this can really work in the current situation. At present, the field of crime control is being reconfigured as a result of political and administrative decisions, which, for their part, are based on a new structure of social relations and cultural attitudes. The demolition of the 'welfare state' means the re-coding of the security policy that facilitates the development of interventionist techniques that govern and control individuals through their own ability to act.

Anti-Feminist Backlash and Violence against Women Worldwide

Although globalization, through the communications revolution and international law, brings the promise of progressive social change, the concern of this paper is with the backlash against women’s increasing emancipation, a backlash that is evidenced in the United States through making a mockery of women’s bid for equality by turning the principles against some women whose lives are troubled while rewarding others. Meanwhile across the world the victimization of women, personal and cultural, is taking place in both democratic and totalitarian regimes. Two related forms of backlash are institutional and personal. That forces from the global market and the corporate media help fuel this backlash is a major contention of this paper.

Gibt es ein Europäisches Verwaltungsrecht?

Der Beitrag schildert an Beispielen aus der Rechtsprechung des Europäischen Gerichtshofs (EuGH), wie sich ausgehend von der Regel, dass jeder Mitgliedstaat das Gemeinschaftsrecht nach eigenem nationalstaatlichen Verwaltungsrecht vollzieht (sog. Vollzugskompetenz der Mitgliedstaaten) in den letzten Jahren gleichwohl Ansätze eines gemeinsamen Europäischen Verwaltungsrechts entwickelt haben. Hierbei werden zunächst die Wirkungsweisen des Effektivitätsgebotes und des Diskriminierungsverbotes erläutert, die als Grund legende Prinzipen dem nationalen Verwaltungsvollzug zugrunde liegen müssen. Daneben erläutert der Beitrag als weitere systematische Grundstrukturen, die für eine gleichmäßige Anwendung des Verwaltungsrechts in allen Mitgliedstaaten kennzeichnend sind, exemplarisch den Grundsatz der Verhältnismäßigkeit, den Grundsatz des Vertrauensschutzes und den Grundsatz der Rechtssicherheit. Im Fazit konstatiert der Verfasser eine durch den EuGH forcierte Rechtsfortbildung, die sich deutlich in Richtung auf ein sich ständig verdichtendes Europäisches Verwaltungsrecht weiterentwickelt.

Spanish Supreme Court Rules in Favour of Google Search Engine... and a Flexible Reading of Copyright Statutes?

On 3 April 2012, the Spanish Supreme Court issued a major ruling in favour of the Google search engine, including its ‘cache copy’ service: Sentencia n.172/2012, of 3 April 2012, Supreme Court, Civil Chamber.* The importance of this ruling lies not so much in the circumstances of the case (the Supreme Court was clearly disgusted by the claimant’s ‘maximalist’ petitum to shut down the whole operation of the search engine), but rather on the court going beyond the text of the Copyright Act into the general principles of the law and case law, and especially on the reading of the three-step test (in Art. 40bis TRLPI) in a positive sense so as to include all these principles. After accepting that none of the limitations listed in the Spanish Copyright statute (TRLPI) exempted the unauthorized use of fragments of the contents of a personal website through the Google search engine and cache copy service, the Supreme Court concluded against infringement, based on the grounds that the three-step test (in Art. 40bis TRLPI) is to be read not only in a negative manner but also in a positive sense so as to take into account that intellectual property – as any other kind of property – is limited in nature and must endure any ius usus inocui (harmless uses by third parties) and must abide to the general principles of the law, such as good faith and prohibition of an abusive exercise of rights (Art. 7 Spanish Civil Code).The ruling is a major success in favour of a flexible interpretation and application of the copyright statutes, especially in the scenarios raised by new technologies and market agents, and in favour of using the three-step test as a key tool to allow for it.