This piece of legislation implements the Council Directive 89/104/EEC, and in doing so, sets out in section 10 what counts as trademark infringement within the UK law. This provision might affect intermediaries such as online auction and shopping websites.
The sizeable CDPA 1988 contains quite a few provisions related to intermediary liability. First of all, Sections 16 to 26 set out the definitions of various copyright infringing acts – those which might be of particular interest to online intermediaries are for example section 16(2) (dealing with the concept of authorisation of infringement) or section 20 (covering communication to the public). Secondly, Section 97A provides the basis for injunctions against providers of information society services. Finally, Section 107 covers the types of copyright-infringing conduct leading to criminal liability, quite a few of which could be potentially applied to online intermediaries. See more at Wikipedia
The decision in CBS v Amstrad is a leading authority on joint tort liability and authorisation liability of intermediaries facilitating the copyright-infringing actions of their users. In this case, a manufacturer and seller of hi-fi equipment (which allowed its users to copy music from one tape to another) was found to be not liable for its customers’ infringing use of said equipment. While this case comes from the “analogue era”, it continues to influence the decisions concerning online intermediaries; for example, it was the key authority considered in the first Newzbin case (see below).
New exception to intermediaries' immunities under CDA 230
The Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act is the first amendment since 1996 to one of the US’s core Internet laws, Communications Decency Act Section 230 (CDA 230). (The bill is commonly referred to as FOSTA, based a title from an earlier draft, and was also at one point known as SESTA.) CDA 230 broadly immunizes intermediaries from liability for content posted by users, with the important exceptions of intellectual property claims and federal criminal claims. FOSTA adds a new exception for claims involving prostitution and sex trafficking. FOSTA amends CDA 230 itself, and also amends existing federal criminal laws covering prostitution (18 USC 2421A) and trafficking (18 USC 1591 and 1595). It exposes intermediaries to two new categories of lawsuits. One is civil claims brought by private parties...
Center for Democracy & Technology, Intermediary Liability, https://cdt.org/issue/free-expression/intermediary-liability Electronic Frontier Foundation, https://www.eff.org Eric Goldman's Technology and Marketing Law Blog, blog.ericgoldman.org including a discussion of all Section 230 cases so far decided Stanford CIS, Intermediary Liability, https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/focus-areas/intermediary-liability The Takedown Project, http://takedownproject.org/
SESTA and FOSTA SESTA (in the Senate) and FOSTA (in the House) are both bills that would amend Communications Decency Act Section 230 (CDA 230) to create new liability for intermediaries in sex trafficking cases. Both are responses to judicial victories by Backpage, a classified advertising site that includes adult services listings. After Backpage successfully relied on CDA 230 immunities, new facts came to light, including claims that Backpage employees worked directly with sex traffickers to help draft advertisements. At least one case, Doe v. Backpage, is ongoing and may lead to a different result under CDA 230. SESTA, the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, would create new civil and criminal claims in sex trafficking cases. It would expand federal criminal law, which applies to platforms regardless of CDA 230. In...