Big Content verboten to outsource piracy enforcement
 

The highest court in Germany has decided that ISPs might have to act as Big Content’s censors and block websites offering illegal music downloads, but only as a last resort.

The Federal Supreme Court said was that the copyright holders showed have to show they made reasonable attempts to thwart such piracy by other means and that might be a little difficult.

The court felt that Big Content was trying to outsource its enforcement to the ISPs and said that it was not doing enough itself to stop pirates.

The federal Supreme Court dismissed two cases brought by music rights society GEMA against Deutsche Telekom and music companies Universal Music, Sony and Warner Music Group against Telefonica’s O2 Deutschland.

It said on Thursday the plaintiffs did not make enough effort to halt the copyright violations in the first place but said Internet service providers could in principle be held responsible for blocking music illegally available on the Internet, even if the content remained available elsewhere.

http://www.techeye.net/news/big-cont...cy-enforcement