Role and responsibility of the internet intermediaries in the field of copyright and related rights

Internet content is distributed, hosted and located by online intermediaries, whose part in the entire enterprise of the information society is thus vital. Content or services often carry with them legal liability, which may be civil or criminal e.g. obscene, defamatory, racist content. Most saliently, for the purposes of this report, it may infringe the copyright of the rightsholder, if the host, publisher, reader or listener has made an unauthorizedcopy or breached other recognized rights under copyright law. It is important throughout this report however to keep in mind that the issue of how to regulate the liability of online intermediaries for copyright infringement has to be situated in the wider debate around their liability for other types of illegal or actionable activity or content.