EU Court: Social Networks Can't Be Made To Filter Content

The owner of a social network cannot be made to install monitoring systems to prevent illegal downloads of copyrighted material, the European Court of Justice, the European Union's highest court, ruled. In a case referred to the ECJ by a Belgian court, the court ruled that if a national court required a hosting service provider to install a filtering system, it "would not be respecting the requirement that a fair balance be struck" between intellectual property rights on one hand and the freedom to conduct business and data protection on the other. The ECJ's ruling was in line with a November 2011 decision which said Internet providers can't be made to filter content.