SABAM is a management company which represents authors, composers and editors of musical works in authorising the use of their copyright-protected works by third parties. Scarlet is an internet service provider (“ISP”) which provides its customers with access to the internet without offering other services such as downloading or file sharing.
In the course of 2004, SABAM concluded that internet users using Scarlet’s services were downloading works in SABAM’s catalogue from the internet, without authorisation and without paying royalties, by means of peer-to-peer networks. On 24 June 2004, SABAM accordingly brought interlocutory proceedings against Scarlet before the President of the Court of First Instance, Brussels, claiming that that company was the best placed, as an ISP, to take measures to bring to an end copyright infringements committed by its customers.
SABAM also sought an order requiring Scarlet to bring such infringements to an end by blocking, or making it impossible for its customers to send or receive in any way, files containing a musical work using peer-to-peer software without the permission of the rightholders, on pain of a periodic penalty. Lastly, SABAM requested that Scarlet provide it with details of the measures that it would be applying in order to comply with the judgment to be given, on pain of a periodic penalty.
By judgment of 26 November 2004, the President of the Court of First Instance, Brussels, found that copyright had been infringed, as claimed by SABAM, but, prior to ruling on the application for cessation, appointed an expert to investigate whether the technical solutions proposed by SABAM were technically feasible, whether they would make it possible to filter out only unlawful file sharing, and whether there were other ways of monitoring the use of peer-to-peer software, and to determine the cost of the measures envisaged. In his report, the appointed expert concluded that, despite numerous technical obstacles, the feasibility of filtering and blocking the unlawful sharing of electronic files could not be entirely ruled out.
By judgment of 29 June 2007, the President of the Tribunal de première instance, Brussels, accordingly ordered Scarlet to bring to an end the copyright infringements established in the judgment of 26 November 2004 by making it impossible for its customers to send or receive in any way files containing a musical work in SABAM’s repertoire by means of peer-to-peer software, on pain of a periodic penalty.
Scarlet appealed against that decision to the European Court, claiming, first, that it was impossible for it to comply with that injunction since the effectiveness and permanence of filtering and blocking systems had not been proved and that the installation of the equipment for so doing was faced with numerous practical obstacles, such as problems with the network capacity and the impact on the network. Moreover, any attempt to block the files concerned was, it argued, doomed to fail in the very short term because there were at that time several peer-to-peer software products which made it impossible for third parties to check their content.
The court held that the injunction imposed on the ISP concerned requiring it to install the contested filtering system would oblige it to actively monitor all the data relating to each of its customers in order to prevent any future infringement of intellectual-property rights. It follows that that injunction would require the ISP to carry out general monitoring. In this case, the injunction requiring the installation of the contested filtering system involves monitoring all the electronic communications made through the network of the ISP concerned in the interests of rightholders. Moreover, that monitoring has no limitation in time, is directed at all future infringements and is intended to protect not only existing works, but also future works that have not yet been created at the time when the system is introduced.
Accordingly, such an injunction would result in a serious infringement of the freedom of the ISP concerned to conduct its business since it would require that ISP to install a complicated, costly, permanent computer system at its own expense. In those circumstances, it must be held that the injunction to install the contested filtering system is to be regarded as not respecting the requirement that a fair balance be struck between, on the one hand, the protection of the intellectual-property right enjoyed by copyright holders, and, on the other hand, that of the freedom to conduct business enjoyed by operators such as ISPs. Moreover the contested filtering system may also infringe the fundamental rights of that ISP’s customers, namely their right to protection of their personal data and their freedom to receive or impart information.
First, that injunction requiring installation of the contested filtering system would involve a systematic analysis of all content and the collection and identification of users’ IP addresses from which unlawful content on the network is sent. Those addresses are protected personal data because they allow those users to be precisely identified. Secondly, that injunction could potentially undermine freedom of information since that system might not distinguish adequately between unlawful content and lawful content, with the result that its introduction could lead to the blocking of lawful communications.