EU court rules out social media filters

Social networking sites such as Facebook or Google’s YouTube cannot be compelled to install filters to block illegal trading of copyrighted music or video, a European Union court has ruled, in a blow to content owners.

The EU’s General Court ruled that to filter information would fall foul of existing EU laws. It found that such a move failed to strike a fair balance between the right to enforce intellectual property by its creators, on the one hand, and the freedom to conduct business in the online world on the other.

The ruling reflects a November decision that found that internet service providers, which connect users to the web, also could not be compelled to filter content.

Both cases were brought by Sabam, a Belgian company that manages copyright on behalf of content creators. The decision on Thursday related to a lawsuit against Netlog NV, a local social networking site whose members Sabam claims ritually posted pirated material on their profile pages.

The court found that a generalised obligation to filter content “would result in a serious infringement of Netlog’s freedom to conduct its business since it would require Netlog to install a complicated, costly, permanent computer system at its own expense”.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, welcomed the ruling, “particularly the confirmation of the prohibition ... imposing a general obligation of monitoring on online intermediaries”.

It added that fresh enforcement of intellectual property rights legislation will be initiated in coming months.

The ruling follows protests across Europe against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which, like the Stop Online Piracy Act in the US, had been intended to combat piracy – but which many technologists fear is too heavy handed.

Content owners have been putting pressure on internet groups to take greater responsibility for policing copyright infringement on their networks. Social networking sites typically respond to takedown requests when pirated items of content or links to them are identified by the copyright owner or a trade body.

Google’s YouTube video sharing site offers a tool called ContentID which can take a “fingerprint” of audio or visual material and, if the owner requests it, take down all uploads that match.

But Google and other technology companies have argued that too much filtering of content before it appears on their sites could have a chilling effect on free speech and user privacy.

Facebook, Twitter and Google declined to comment.

Adam Rendle, a copyright lawyer at the law firm Taylor Wessing, said the Sabam decision “will make it very difficult for rights owners to force sites whose users may upload or share unlawful material – like social networks, message boards and cloud services – to carry out general monitoring to identify and remove unlawful material on those sites”.

“The court was clear that, in these circumstances, freedom to operate the sites’ businesses and users’ freedom to receive information trumps the claims of rights owners to have infringements blocked,” he said.