Internet Liability and Intermediaries in Europe: Recent Developments.

During the recent times, a plethora of legal developments has affected the liability of Internet-based businesses. Courts have imposed Access Providers, Social Media Platforms, News Portals and Search Services an increasing number of obligations based on copyright, data protection, competition and criminal laws. For example, news portals could become liable for user-generated comments. Linking could result in copyrightbased liability. The “right to be forgotten”, intended to protect data of individuals, places significant obligations on search services and could lessen public availability of important information.

These developments affect not only communication and business based on the Internet, but also the identities of Internet actors. It seems that freedom of expression values, in particular, have been net losers in this development. The idea of the Workshop is to address these and other similar developments from the perspective of underlying value conflicts, multiple effects and roles of Internet actors. The Workshop will connect legal scholars, judges, civil servants and stakeholders in active exchange of experiences, ideas and opinions.

Program

9.50          Registration and coffee

10.20          Opening of the seminar (Professor Tuomas Mylly, University of Turku)

10.30          Judge Allan Rosas (CJEU): Data retention and data protection: Digital Rights Ireland and Google Spain (keynote)

11.00          Researcher Niklas Vainio (University of Turku): Data retention after Digital Rights Ireland Discussion

11.30          Researcher Johannes Heikkonen (University of Turku): User-generated comments and News Portals: The Delfi-case (ECtHR) Discussion

12.00          Working Lunch

12.45          Kaisa Olkkonen (Nokia): Innovation in telecommunications services – an aspect of the net neutrality debate Discussion

13.15          Researcher Pekka Savola (University of Helsinki): The Legacy of Svensson: Copyright Issues in Linking Discussion

13.50        Professor Katja Lindroos (University of Eastern Finland): ISP liability in trademark cases Discussion

14.25          Coffee

14.45          Jarkko Vuorinen (Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority): Essential Patents in the Communications Sector and Competition Law Discussion

15.20          Researcher Toni Selkälä (University Turku): Personal Data of Metadata Discussion

15.55          Researcher, Ph.D, Ville Oksanen (Aalto University): Finnish copyright liability standard and case law – Finreactor, DC++ and TV-kaista. Discussion

We kindly ask you to confirm your participation in the Workshop at the very latest on 28 November by filling in the registration form at konsta.utu.fi, service code ecoherence