When HK government introduced the 2011 Copyright (Amendment) Bill into the Legislative Council, it also brought into sight the statutory ‘safe harbour’ for OSPs so as to protect their potential liability for copyright infringement on their platforms with a non-statutory Code of Practice that sets out the procedures for copyright owners to serve notices of alleged infringement and for subscribers to serve counter notices, the draft was finalized in 2012: (a) Instead of setting a specific time frame within which OSPs must take action to limit and stop a particular infringement, the revised draft Code requires OSPs to act as soon as practicable; (b) In view of the privacy concerns raised by some respondents, HK has made changes under which a subscriber may choose to request the OSP not to disclose his personal data when...
(1) Establishing a statutory ‘safe harbour’ for OSPs so that their liabilities for copyright infringement occurring on their service platforms could be limited, provided that OSPs meet certain prescribed conditions, including the taking of reasonable steps to limit or stop copyright infringement when being notified. (2) The proposal aims at facilitating OSPs’ handling of alleged infringement balancing the interests between copyright owners and users. Under the proposed ‘safe harbour’ provisions, OSPs’ liabilities for copyright infringement occurring on their service platforms could be limited provided that they meet certain prescribed conditions, including the taking of reasonable steps to limit or stop copyright infringement when being notified. (3) The ‘safe harbour’ will be underpinned by a Code of Practice which...
(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.
The case refers to the publication of an article in an online media outlet that contains a hyperlink to a YouTube video. The hyperlink was further reproduced on three other websites, operated by other media outlets. The video was not recorded by a third party and includes statements deemed defamatory by national courts. They also considered that that providing a hyperlink to content qualified as dissemination of facts was unlawful even if the disseminator had not identified itself with the content of the third-party’s statement and even if it had wrongly trusted the truthfulness of the statement. The European Court of Human Rights states that hyperlinks, as a technique of reporting, are essentially different from traditional acts of publication in that, as a general rule, they merely direct users to content available...
(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.