Free for a Fee

Germany’s Supreme Court has ruled that an ISP can be required to block sites that infringe on copyright, even though the ISP has no relationship with them. However, this is subject to two conditions: before seeking an order that require ISPs to block a website, the copyright holders must have explored all other avenues, for example contacting the operators of the site in question, and the Web hosting company. In addition, Web blocks can only be used for sites which “on balance” have more illegal than legal content. However, the court did not provide any guidelines for how that balance would be judged.