German Court Says Domain Registrar Can Be Held Liable For the Infringement of their Customers

Posted on November 7, 2014

Court rules registrars are responsible for fighting piracy

In a case that involved the music of Robin Thicke and his album Blurred Lines, a German court has ruled that a domain registrar can be held liable when it comes to copyright infringement. The domain registrar in this case is Key-Systems who appealed the initial ruling and lost their appeal at The Higher Regional Court of Saarbrücken.

Torrent Freak wrote:

In a case brought by Universal Music over the album Blurred Lines, a Court of Appeal decision in Germany has determined that domain registrars can be held liable for the infringements of their customers. Universal’s lawfirm informs TorrentFreak that the decision gives rightsholders new tools in their fight against online piracy.

By order of the court Key-Systems had to end the infringement of Universal’s rights so it took the drastic decision to delete H33T.com’s DNS entries. That not only stopped further infringement but also disappeared the site from the Internet.

Key-Systems took its case to appeal but has not been successful. The Higher Regional Court of Saarbrücken has just rejected the complaint and confirmed the decision of the lower court.

“The judges state that once notified of an obvious infringement, the registrar has to take action to stop the infringement,” Bruess told TF this morning.

Read the full story on Torrent Freak

6 thoughts on “German Court Says Domain Registrar Can Be Held Liable For the Infringement of their Customers”

  1. And so Domain Registrars will need to decide if they will be willing to deal with the German market as there is no way they can be aware of what customers may choose to do by way of their domains…failing that, ensure they do not have a presence in Germany and perhaps the EU depending on just how such applies within the EU

  2. This ruling is abysmal. Asking a registrar to begin policing its clients for copyright and TM infringement is a herculean task that is hardly the responsibility of the registrar, itself, in my opinion. If a copyright holder or trademark holder wants to enforce their rights, they should do it against those infringing, not a third-party that provides domain name registration. I seriously doubt a ruling like this would ever stand in the U.S., but you never know. What about the hosting companies, if they’re separate from the registrar? What about the bandwidth providers? What about those who operate the root servers that route the user request to the destination server and back? What about the ISP that provides the signal to the end-user? I mean, talk about opening a can or worms!!!

    1. Well, in the UK websites are blocked by ISPs though not sure if that is “voluntary” or a requirement and in Australia I believe there is a push for ISPs to police the data their customers actually download

    2. It’s right in their terms. At what point, do Registrars have an obligation to actually follow through on their terms?

      Your view – much as I respect you and enjoy your comments – promotes Registrars operating outside and beyond the law. Key Systems. We have heard that name in the news before, as it is the owner of Moniker.

      The domain owner was in a clear breach of the registrar’s TOS by running a torrent-site and not reacting to takedown notices. This gave the registrar the opportunity and the obligation to terminate the service by deleting the name from the DNS.”

      according to Universal’s attorney.

      The dismal state of owning a domain these days, is because the Registrars do whatever they want, instead of operate like a bank, with accountability.

    3. Danny Pryor said

      Asking a registrar to begin policing its clients for copyright and TM infringement is a herculean task

      They’re not asking the Registrar to police their clients. Only when they are apprised of a violation.

      The terms are ironclad if the user does something illegal or violates a court order, it ends the contract between Registrar and Registrant.

      It’s like Google allows users to post Youtube videos, but deletes them when they receive a DMCA. I’m sure it’s a case-by-case basis, when it’s obvious the user violates copyright. Google doesn’t have to do much work. There is likely an appeal process.

  3. @ Danny Prior, Talk about targeting the “third party,” you’ll want to grab a popcorn for this:

    Music publishers finally pull the trigger, sue an ISP over piracy
    http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/11/music-publishers-finally-pull-the-trigger-sue-an-isp-over-piracy

    There’s little precedent for a lawsuit trying to hold an ISP responsible for users engaged in piracy. If a judge finds Cox liable for the actions of users on its network, it will have major implications for the company and the whole cable industry. It’s one thing to terminate an account on YouTube, but cable subscribers can pay well over $100 per month—and BMG and Round Hill claim that they’ve notified Cox about 200,000 repeat infringers on its network.

    200,000 subscribers X $100.00/month X 12 months/yr = $240,000,000 annually, a chunk of change.

    What does a quarter billion dollars matter to a company which revenue is some 16 billion / year? I guess it’s cash flow. It probably takes a lot of investment to sign up a subscriber. Cox would rather sanction illegal downloads, then lose the cash flow . . . No wonder

    The complaint states that Cox “actually has taken measures to avoid and stop receiving those notifications,” suggesting the ISP was basically treating e-mails from Rightscorp like spam.

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