Frage an Patrick Breyer von Christian H. bezüglich Außenpolitik und internationale Beziehungen

Sehr geehrter Herr H.,

bitte entschuldigen Sie die späte Antwort bedingt durch die parlamentarische Sommerpause. Mein Büro beantwortet Ihre Frage wie folgt in unserer Arbeitssprache englisch.

"The Copyright in DSM directive in its article 2(6) and Article 17 uses 'service providers' in order to refer to the 'online content-sharing service providers', and to distinguish between those services providers that are excluded and those that are included in the scope of the directive.

The starting point should be the central definition of 'online content-sharing service provider', which is a brand new definition, not present in any other European legislation before. These are specific type of 'information society services' (ISS) as defined in article 2(6) and recital 62. (See especially, the criteria 'should target only online services that play an important role on the online content market by competing with other online content services, such as online audio and video streaming services, for the same audiences' for which we fought a lot in order to try to help start-ups and smaller operators who were originally not meant to be targeted by the legislation).

Essentially, this means that 'services' and 'service providers' comes from that, are to be interpreted as 'any service normally provided for remuneration, at a distance, by electronic means and at the individual request of a recipient of services'. (In line with article 2(5) of the DSM, referring to point (b) of Article 1(1) of Directive (EU) 2015/1535.)

Please note that the criteria 'normally provided for remuneration' has been extensively clarified by the CJEU as meaning both direct and indirect remuneration. More precisely, it covers not only those services for which the recipient pays, but also ohters e.g. financed through advertisement. The reason for this is that, due to the similarities of this definition and the definition of 'service' in Article 57 TFEU, ISS was for long interpreted on that basis of the other's case law too. Finally, in the case Sotiris Papasavvas v O Fileleftheros Dimosia Etaireia Ltd and Others (C-291/13) this interpretation was also confirmed for ISS specifically."

Mit freundlichem Gruß
Patrick Breyer