Aware Thus Accountable : The Court of Rome on ISP Liability and Copyright Infringement via Hyperlinking

In February 2019, the Court of Rome issued an important decision in a controversy between RTI (Mediaset) and Facebook—due to the publication of links to contents under RTI copyright, within a Facebook group. In particular, the Court condemned copyright infringement via mere hyperlinking through a social network, for the first time in Italy. Starting from the case at hand, and against the backdrop of the upcoming EU Copyright Directive, the author critically discusses the trends on copyright infringement via hyperlinking and on the related hosting provider liability within the EU.