(prepared by Swiss Institute of Comparative Law for Council of Europe)
This is one of series of country reports prepared for the Council of Europe in 2015. Other countries' reports, and responses from national governments, are available here. The studies undertake to present the laws and, in so far as information is easily available, the practices concerning the filtering, blocking and takedown of illegal content on the internet.
Articles 11 to 15 of the law outline the liability scheme for internet intermediaries. The law largely follows the European Union E-Commerce 'safe harbours' model, immunizing intermediaries when they act as a mere conduit or when they cache or host material. Intermediaries remain liable if they themselves are the originators of the information, if they modify the information or if they are aware of the infringing nature of the information. While there is no general monitoring duty imposed on intermediaries, once they are made aware of the infringing content they do have a duty to ‘rapidly’ remove it from their platform. Article 16 further provides that the legal remedy brought against these intermediaries is either a take-down or a blocking order (both temporary and permanent injunctive remedies are permitted). The law...