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Legislation

Law of June 30, 1994 on Copyright and Related Rights

including Article 87 implementing Article 8.2 of the Infosoc Directive of 2001 which states that “Member States shall ensure that rightholders are in a position to apply for an injunction against intermediaries whose services are used by a third party to infringe a copyright or related right.” Note that this Law has been now codfied and inserted in the Book XI of the Belgian Commercial Law codification, which will enter into force on January, 1 2015
Legal Opinion/Petition

Brussels Court of First Instance, Civil, SABAM v. Scarlet SA/NV (“The Tiscali/Scarlet case”), 04/8975A, June 29, 2007

In its report filed January, 3 2007, the expert witness presented 11 solutions that can be applied to block or filter file sharing, including 7 applicable to Scarlet/Tiscali. On the basis of this report and the submissions of the parties, the Court ruled that technical solutions do exist to stop copyright infringements of music files via P2P file sharing. Accordingly, the Court ordered Scarlet to implement such measures to prevent future damage, within a period of time of six months and under a penalty of a fine of 2,500 euros per day of violation. Scarlet was also ordered to provide SABAM a description of the measures taken.
Court Decision

Anvers Court of First Instance, Civil, The Belgian Anti-piracy federation ASBL/VZW v. Telenet SA/NV & Belgacom SA/NV (The Pirate Bay case I), No. A/10/5374, July 8, 2010

The Court rejected the request of blocking eight "ThePirateBay" websites and other “ThePirateBay” websites extensions. The request was filed against two of the biggest Belgian Internet providers, Telenet and Belgacom. The Court rejected the request by arguing that ThePirateBay was online for a long time without a judicial reaction of the Belgian Anti-Piracy Federation (BAPF), and it was unclear which rights BAPF claimed to have been infringed.