Re:German Court Says Domain Registrars Are Responsible for C...
by pbhjpbhj on Saturday February 08, 2014 @07:09AM
(#7200993)
>A domain name registrar can be held liable for the copyright infringements of a website it registered if it is obvious the domain is used for infringements and the registrar does nothing to prevent it, the Regional Court of Saarbrücken in Germany has ruled. //
The court is going to have to define what "obvious use of a domain for copyright infringement" means in order for companies to make such a decision.
For example a torrent tracker isn't copyright infringing, it may be considered in court to be a contributory infringement [? don't know German caselaw on this?] but that's a non-obvious call for a company to make without the benefit of expert advisers.
Trackers point to [not exclusively] infringing material, like Google/Bing point to infringing material.
Indeed it may be impossible for a tracker host to establish the legality of any particular torrent without court powers to seize evidence and call witnesses and such.
The court is going to have to define what "obvious use of a domain for copyright infringement" means in order for companies to make such a decision.
For example a torrent tracker isn't copyright infringing, it may be considered in court to be a contributory infringement [? don't know German caselaw on this?] but that's a non-obvious call for a company to make without the benefit of expert advisers.
Trackers point to [not exclusively] infringing material, like Google/Bing point to infringing material.
Indeed it may be impossible for a tracker host to establish the legality of any particular torrent without court powers to seize evidence and call witnesses and such.