On November, 24th, the European Court of Justice issued an important desicion on the juridical “battle” between the belgian Sabam and the ISP Scarlet.

The Eu Court ruled that an ISP can’t be obliged to monitor the activity of their online consumers and that content owners can’t force ISP to engage in large scale filtering and blocking of copyright infringing material online. According to the text of the European court’s decision, copyright holders can still request that service providers take down websites that provide links to copyrighted content, but ISPs are not required to proactively search out and block pirated material offered by any of the various sites they host (it would have been against the E-commerce Directive).

Now we show you a fragment of the Court’s decision:

In the present case, the injunction requiring the installation of a filtering system involves monitoring, in the interests of copyright holders, all electronic communications made through the network of the internet service provider concerned. That monitoring, moreover, is not limited in time. Such an injunction would thus result in a serious infringement of Scarlet’s freedom to conduct its business as it would require Scarlet to install a complicated, costly, permanent computer system at its own expense. What is more, the effects of the injunction would not be limited to Scarlet, as the filtering system would also be liable to infringe the fundamental rights of its customers, namely their right to protection of their personal data and their right to receive or impart information, which are rights safeguarded by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU.

Of course this decision make an important turnpoint in the field. What will happen in the next future?