Acting on behalf of the Motion Picture Association (MPA), the Madrid office of HOYNG ROKH MONEGIER has obtained the first decision in Spain implementing the doctrine set out by the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union of June 22, 2021, in the Cyando case (C-683/18).
The decision, issued by Commercial Court no. 9 of Barcelona on 3 October 2023, has consequently ordered the main Internet Access Providers in Spain to block the access of their users to a platform called « POWVIDEO », since it concludes that it is a Cyberlocker, that is, « a file storage service provider that makes available unlicensed commercial audiovisual content allowing users to upload and download it to and from its servers« .
Thus, after the evidence provided, the judgment of the Court in Barcelona considers proven the existence of a massive infringement of rights, with the harmful consequences that this entails for the economy in general: « it is also found that there is extensive illegal access to audiovisual content through the aforementioned platform POWVIDEO; with the consequent economic losses that not only affect the plaintiffs, but the economy in general« .
Consequently, the Commercial Court considers it proportionate to adopt « an effective blocking measure for the protection of intellectual property rights« , consisting in the blocking of IP addresses for POWVIDEO’s dedicated storage servers and at DNS level for Powvideo’s own websites, in order to avoid the risk of overblocking.
It is also relevant to mention that the judicial blocking order is of a dynamic nature, i.e. « it is about ordering the blocking of the infrastructure created by the infringers » by blocking new domains, sub-domains and IP addresses that might be subsequently created by the infringers to circumvent the court order.
Finally, we note the relevance of this decision at the international level, as it joins other judicial decisions against cyberlockers adopted in other jurisdictions, as shown, for example, by the citation as a valuable precedent of the judgment handed down by the Supreme Court of New Delhi (India) on May 2, 2023 (case CS (COMM) 663/2022).
José Antonio Sanmartín and Carmen Amor have been the HOYNG ROKH MONEGIER team in charge for this matter.
The relevance of this decision in the fight against piracy is confirmed by its appearance in Spanish media: https://bit.ly/401X4q9