Abstract
In Pelham, the EU Court of Justice and the German Federal Constitutional Court reached diametrically opposing conclusions on the relevance of freedom of art in copyright law. The different stances permit a speculative prediction – they can have immediate consequences for the predictable challenges against the new platform liability regime under Article 17 DSMD, and its associated dangers of wide-spread filtering and blocking. The article discusses the numerous constitutional implications with specific attention given to the respective interests affected by the new regime (authors, exploiters, users, platforms) in light of the divergent approaches from the perspective of what appears to be two rather conflicting constitutional cultures: specific perceptions of fundamental rights and proportionality under German law versus an approach tending to emphasise market integration under the EU legal order. Recent assertions by the German Constitutional Court redevising the division of competences between national and EU law permit the prediction of a disturbing future collision course between the two systems, with potentially massive implications for EU copyright law by and large.
Highlights
The deadline for implementing the DSMD1 has passed
Recent assertions by the German Constitutional Court redevising the division of competences between national and EU law permit the prediction of a disturbing future collision course between the two systems, with potentially massive implications for EU copyright law by and large
The BVerfG is much closer to an understanding of fairness as a central tenet, considering that the court did not place much emphasis on how copyright could resolve such conflicts, and it was probably irrelevant that copyright law had no statutory mechanism to deal with freedom of art but the ill-fitting free use clause
Summary
The deadline for implementing the DSMD1 has passed. Upload filters will become reality. Technological measures safeguard exploiter’s existing distribution channels from disruptive competition This contribution addresses, centrally, the question of constitutionality of the new liability regime[7] in light of the opposing decisions by the German Federal Constitutional Court (BVerfG) and the Court of Justice for the European Union as reached in the Pelham ( well known as the “Metal on Metal”8) litigation respectively[9], a dispute entailing and raising countless problematic concerns. The decisions are highly relevant from a constitutional perspective Both address the conflict between creativity and technological control, and between an open system of decision making and the alleged closed list as regards exceptions under Article 5 EUCD
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