European Union: CJEU rules that Article 17 of Copyright Directive is compatible with rights to freedom of expression and information

On 26 April 2022, the Court of Justice of the European Union issued its ruling on the case Poland v. European Parliament and Council. The action was brought before the court by the Polish government on 24 May 2019, challenging the validity of Article 17 of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (Copyright Directive). The challenge argued that requiring online content-sharing service providers to monitor the content that users upload on their platform to ensure that it doesn’t infringe copyrights, in order to avoid liability, violates the freedom of expression and the freedom to receive and impart information guaranteed in Article 13 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. The court ruled that the liability regime in the Copyright Directive provides appropriate safeguards to uphold users' rights to freedom of expression and information. Furthermore, the court noted that under Article 17 of the Copyright Directive, the online content-sharing service providers could be held liable for failing to ensure the unavailability of copyright-protected content only if the rightsholders provide the platform with the relevant and necessary information concerning that content.