Reference for a preliminary ruling from the Rechtbank van eerste aanleg te Brussel (Belgium) lodged on 19 July 2010 — Belgische Vereniging van Auteurs, Componisten en Uitgevers (Sabam) v Netlog NV

(Case C-360/10)

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(2010/C 288/30)

Language of the case: Dutch

Referring court

Rechtbank van eerste aanleg te Brussel

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicant: Belgische Vereniging van Auteurs, Componisten en Uitgevers (Sabam)

Defendant: Netlog NV

Question referred

Do Directives 2001/29 (1) and 2004/48, (2) in conjunction with Directives 95/46, (3) 2000/31 (4) and 2002/58, (5) construed in particular in the light of Articles 8 and 10 of the European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, permit Member States to authorise a national court, before which substantive proceedings have been brought and on the basis merely of a statutory provision stating that: ‘They [the national courts] may also issue an injunction against intermediaries whose services are used by a third party to infringe a copyright or related right’, to order a hosting service provider to introduce, for all its customers, in abstracto and as a preventive measure, at its own cost and for an unlimited period, a system for filtering most of the information which is stored on its servers in order to identify on its servers electronic files containing musical, cinematographic or audio-visual work in respect of which SABAM claims to hold rights, and subsequently to block the exchange of such files?

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(1)  Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society (OJ 2001 L 167, p. 10).

(2)  Directive 2004/48/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights (OJ 2004 L 157, p. 45).

(3)  Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data (OJ 1995 L 281, p. 31).

(4)  Directive 2000/31/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2000 on certain legal aspects of information society services, in particular electronic commerce, in the Internal Market (‘Directive on electronic commerce’) (OJ 2000 L 178, p. 1).

(5)  Directive 2002/58/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 July 2002 concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector (Directive on privacy and electronic communications) (OJ 2002 L 201, p. 37).