Article138, 139, 140, 154-A and 359 The Article 184 of the Criminal Code regards violation of copyright, which constitutes as crime making available to the public copyrighted work, by electronic means, without proper authorization. This provision was revised in 2003. “Article 184 . Violate copyright and its related rights. Penalty - imprisonment of three (3) months to one (1) year or a fine. §1 If the violation consists in total or partial reproduction, in order to profit directly or indirectly, by any means or process, of intellectual work, performance or phonogram, without express permission from the author, performer, producer, as appropriate, or whom he represents. Penalty - imprisonment of two (2) to four (4) years and a fine. §2 The same penalty of §1 applies to whom, for the purpose of direct or indirect profit...
(1) Under the LCNR and the Criminal Code (CC), it is illegal to “upload (reproduction), distribute and make available (broadcast), transmits infringing content” on the Internet. Article 172а (1) of the Criminal Code states that “every person who uploads (reproduces), distributes and makes available infringing content or transmits, or makes any other use of the object of a copyright or neighboring right without the consent of the rightholder as required by law, shall be punished by up to five years imprisonment and a fine up to BGN 5,000”. The LCNR in § 2 (3-5) defines the terms “upload (reproduction)”, “distribute” and “make available (broadcasting)”. Both the Internet providers hosting the infringing materials and the end users who upload (reproduce) may be held liable under this provision because the law does not...
There is a contradiction between the applicable Rules of CIvil Procedure and the Law on Copyright and Neighboring Rights (LCNR), which requires a pending civil proceeding to be initiated before identification of infringers may be requested. In contrast, rules of civil procedure do not allow a court to open the civil case without the identification of the defendant at least by name. This means that while Bulgarian law implements the right of information provided by Article 8(1) of the EU Enforcement Directive, its exercise is hindered by civil procedure rules.
(1) The most pertinent parts of this Act for intermediaries are sections 2.4(1)(b), 27 and 29. Section 2.4(1)(b), known as the “Common Carrier Exemption”, states that an intermediary is not liable for copyright infringement by merely providing “the means of telecommunication necessary” for others to communicate digital content. (2) Section 27 pertains to secondary infringement. Pursuant to section 27(1), the copyright owner holds the exclusive right to authorize any activities that involves his/her work. One issue, therefore, is whether intermediaries may be held liable for authorizing infringing acts carried out by their users. Section 27(2) addresses secondary infringement (e.g., when a person sells, imports or distributes illegal copies of material). (3) Provisions related to fair dealing are also relevant. As per...
Copyright Modernization Act, SC 2012, c 20. (1) This is an amending Act to the Copyright Act (see below). Section 31.1 expands the exemption granted by section 2.4(1)(b) of the Copyright Act and is essentially a codification of the holdings from SOCAN v CAIP (see below). Section 31.1(1) states that ISPs, provided that they are content neutral, cannot be held liable by providing any means for Internet access. The fact that “any means” for telecommunication is used instead of “the means” necessary for telecommunication, which appears in section 2.4(1)(b), signifies that this provision is intended to cover a wider range of intermediaries that provide access to third party content such as blogging, video and social networking websites. Moreover, whereas section 2.4(1)(b) is only applicable in cases where the intermediary...
Together with new copyright exceptions and limitations and the new rules for collecting societies’ tariff procedures, this amendement establishes a regime of limitations on liability for information service providers, as defined in Artice 5 Y. A number of Articles deal specifically with intermediary liability. Article 85 L provides a liability limitation for ISPs as long as they comply with the conditions and requirements of this law, regardless of potential regular civil liability. Article 85 M provides general conditions for limiting liability of transmission, routing, or connection providers that do not modify or select content, or initiate or select the destination of transmissions. Article 85 N provides general conditions for limiting liability among caching service providers that respect access and update...