File sharing and family members

The owner of an internet connection through which copyright infringements through file sharing have been committed cannot exempt himself from liability by simply naming a family member who was able to access this connection.

The rightholders must have an effective legal remedy or means that enable the competent courts to order the provision of the necessary information.

This has now been decided by the ECJ, based on a case from Germany.

The German publishing house Bastei Lübbe is seeking damages before the Munich I Regional Court because an audio book, whose copyrights and related rights it holds, was offered for download to an unlimited number of users of an Internet file-sharing platform via the connection owner’s Internet connection.

The subscriber denied having committed the copyright infringement himself. In addition, he claims that his parents, who live in the same house, also had access to the connection, without, however, providing any further details on the time and type of use of the connection by his parents.

In this context, the Munich I Regional Court asked the ECJ to interpret the provisions of Union law on the protection of intellectual property rights.

The Court has now ruled that EU law precludes national
legislation (such as that at issue in the main proceedings, as interpreted by the competent national court) under which the owner of an internet connection used to commit copyright infringements through file sharing cannot be held liable if he names a family member who was able to access that connection without providing further details of the time and manner of use of the connection by that family member.

According to the ECJ, an appropriate balance must be struck between various fundamental rights, namely, on the one hand, the right to an effective remedy and the right to intellectual property and, on the other hand, the right to respect for private and family life.

Such a balance would be lacking if the family members of the owner of an Internet connection through which copyright infringements were committed by file sharing were granted quasi-absolute protection.

However, the situation would be different if, in order to avoid an interference with family life that is deemed inadmissible, the rightholders were able to have another effective legal remedy, which in this case would enable them in particular to have the civil liability of the owner of the Internet connection in question established.

This decision, coupled with similar BGH decisions, should make it very difficult in the future for accused file-sharers to merely claim that someone else may have committed the infringing act.