Germany's Copyright Clearing House now requires courts for website blocks

Summary

Copyright clearing house: Committee for website blocking to rely on judiciary After more than four years of work, the Copyright Clearing House for the Internet (Clearingstelle Urheberrecht im Internet, CUII), established in 2021, has declared itself "successful in the fight against criminal business models on the Internet." At the same time, it is responding to one of the main points of criticism, namely that a private body imposes restrictions on websites that are sensitive in terms of fundamental rights, largely unchecked and behind closed doors. The procedure is now to be further developed so that courts review every restriction, the organization announced on Wednesday. This will "establish an effective and legally secure procedure," according to the clearing house, whose members include major providers such as Telekom, Vodafone, Telefónica, and 1&1. On the rights holders' side, the German Publishers and Booksellers Association, the Federal Association of the Music Industry, the Games Industry Association, the Motion Picture Association (MPA), Sky, and Gema are among those represented. "Under current law, websites with an illegal business model can be blocked by access providers," explained the chairman of the CUII steering committee, Berlin lawyer Jan Bernd Nordemann. For the association, it is "a top priority that only justified blocks are implemented. The new court system guarantees this "also in the future." Hundreds of domains already more difficult to access According to the association, "25 websites with many hundreds of domains" have been blocked under the previous system. Their operators had deliberately infringed copyright. They made protected content from the fields of film, music, sports, games, books, and magazines accessible "intentionally and without permission." As a rule, it is not possible to take direct action against the creators "because they hide behind the anonymity of the internet." Streaming portals for films and series such as kinox.to, ...