The Information Society Services Act (ISSA), which is based on the EU e-Commerce Directive (Directive 2000/31/EC), lists three types on services the providers which are exempted from potential liability under certain conditions: (i) mere transmission and access to public data communications network providers (Section 8 ISSA); (ii) caching providers (Section 9 ISSA); and (iii) hosting providers (Section 10 ISSA). The Act also stipulates that the service providers in the meaning of Sections 8 to 10 are not required to monitor the information transmitted or stored by them or search any illegal activity (Section 11 ISSA).
The draft Copyright Act in its currently available version does not include a special provision referring to Section 1055 of Law of Obligations Act as stated above. The Law of Obligations Act will not, however, be amended in relevant respect. Therefore, in essence no changes are introduced. The estimated time of entry into force of the new Copyright Act is 1 January 2017.
The Law of Obligations Act (LOA) implements Article 8(3) of the Copyright Directive (Directive 2001/29/EC). If unlawful damage is caused by violation of copyright or related rights or violation of industrial property right, the person whose rights are violated may request that the violator and the person whose services a third party used for the purpose of violation of the right be refrained from further violation. (Section 1055(3) LOA).
Section 817 of Copyright Act stipulates that in the case of the unlawful use of a work or an object of related rights, the author or holder of related rights may, among other, claim termination of the unlawful use of a work or an object of related rights and refrainment from further violation pursuant to Section 1055 of the Law of Obligations Act.
(prepared by Swiss Institute of Comparative Law for Council of Europe)
This is one of series of country reports prepared for the Council of Europe in 2015. Other countries' reports, and responses from national governments, are available here. The studies undertake to present the laws and, in so far as information is easily available, the practices concerning the filtering, blocking and takedown of illegal content on the internet.
Section 60a empowers a court to order an intermediary of those users to disclose information of subscribers who make copyrighted content available to the public "to a significant extent". Section 60b governs a suit to forbid continuing the infringement. Section 60c provides a possibility for an "injunction to discontinue" for intermediaries, essentially providing for website blocking or user disconnection orders in case the operator can be identified. In case of a preliminary injunction, the claimant is required to sue the infringer as per Section 60b. Section 60d provides for an interlocutory injunctions in situations like Section 60c. Section 60e provides for blocking injunctions in cases where the operator cannot be identified, for at most one year at at time. Section 60f provides inter alia that in a typical case...