Come sottolineato nello stesso post del prof. Voorhoof, i casi di violazioni relative ad Internet discusse avanti alla Corte Europea dei Diritti dell'Uomo sono considerevolmente aumentati negli ultimi due anni. Tuttavia, leggendo a fondo i testi delle sentenze e delle decisioni, si rimane spesso un po' delusi. In questo caso, non sono stati affermati nuovi principi: tutto è diretta o indiretta conseguenza di pronunce precedenti (alcune già del 2007), di cui la Corte sostanzialmente conferma la validità. In particolare, nonostante siano passati ormai decenni dalle prime sentenze sul punto, permane una robusta diffidenza per tutto ciò che è "commercial speech", diffidenza che si traduce in un allargamento del "margine di apprezzamento" riconosciuto ai poteri statali nel bilanciare tutela della libertà d'espressione con tutela del diritto di proprietà intellettuale. Al contrario, c'è grande attesa per le pronunce riguardanti il diritto di accesso ad Internet, sulle quali la Corte Europea può davvero ricoprire un ruolo da "apripista". Segnalo in particolare la decisione Jankovskis c. Lituania, in attesa di decisione dal 2010 (per ora, è disponibile unicamente lo statement of facts). C. D. ________________________________ From: J.C. DE MARTIN <demartin@polito.it> To: NEXA List <nexa@server-nexa.polito.it> Sent: Sunday, February 10, 2013 8:51 PM Subject: [nexa] ECHR Blog: "Copyright vs Freedom of Expression Judgment" Tuesday, 22 January 2013 Copyright vs Freedom of Expression Judgment Earlier this month, the Court issued an important judgment, Ashby Donald and others v France (judgment in French), on the tensions between copyright law and the freedom of expression. It is my great pleasure to put online a guest post about this judgment by professor Dirk Voorhoof of Ghent University and Inger Høedt-Rasmussen of Copenhagen Business School. Thanks to both! Copyright vs. freedom of expression ECtHR (5th section), 10 January 2013, case of Ashby Donald and others v. France, Appl. nr. 36769/08 By Dirk Voorhoof, Ghent University and Inger Høedt-Rasmussen, Copenhagen Business School

For the first time in a judgment on the merits, the European Court of Human Rights has clarified that a conviction based on copyright law for illegally reproducing or publicly communicating copyright protected material can be regarded as an interference with the right of freedom of expression and information under Article 10 of the European Convention. Such interference must be in accordance with the three conditions enshrined in the second paragraph of Article 10 of the Convention. This means that a conviction or any other judicial decision based on copyright law, restricting a person’s or an organisation’s freedom of expression, must be pertinently motivated as being necessary in a democratic society, apart from being prescribed by law and pursuing a legitimate aim.

It is, in other words, no longer sufficient to justify a sanction or any other judicial order restricting one’s artistic or journalistic freedom of expression on the basis that a copyright law provision has been infringed. Neither is it sufficient to consider that the unauthorised use, reproduction or public communication of a work cannot rely on one of the narrowly interpreted exceptions in the copyright law itself, including the application of the so-called three-step test (art. 5.5 EU Directive 2001/29 of 22 May 2001). The European Court’s judgment of 10 January 2013 in the case of Ashby Donald and others v. France unambiguously declares Article 10 of the Convention applicable in copyright cases interfering with the right of freedom of expression and information of others, adding an external human rights perspective to the justification of copyright enforcement. Due to the important wide margin of appreciation available to the national

authorities in this particular case, the impact of Article 10 however is very modest and minimal. [...] Continua qui: http://echrblog.blogspot.in/2013/01/copyright-vs-freedom-of-expression.html _______________________________________________ nexa mailing list nexa@server-nexa.polito.it https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa