Germany: German implementation of art. 17 EU digital single market directive goes into force

The national implementation of article 17 of the EU's digital single market directive goes into force. The new Urheberrecht-Diensteanbieter-Gesetz, enacted as art. 3 of the EU DSM implementation law, transposes art. 17. While it does not mandate upload filters, it leads to a de facto obligation to introduce such filters for platform providers. The law thus introduces ex-ante safeguards against overblocking. The key safeguard against automated blocking is the "use presumably authorised by law", which applies to uploads that firstly use less than half of third party works, secondly, combine such third-party content with other content and thirdly constitute only minor use, meaning a non-commercial use of 15 seconds or less of video and audio, 160 characters of text or 125kB of an image or a use flagged by the user as authorised by law. Such presumably authorised content can not be automatically blocked before the upload and must be published on the platform. If a match with a protected work is detected by a filter, the rightsholder is notified and can file a complaint, which leads to a human review that can then cause a removal of the content. Only certain trusted rightsholders have the right to request immediate blocking (red button mechanism).