PortugalCódigo do Direito de Autor e dos Direitos Conexos, Articles 175-A to 175-I (Online Content-Sharing Service Providers)
In force since .
A notice and action rule binding private bodies.
- Obligation class
- Licensing, Disclosure
As of .
What it requires
- Obtain authorization from the rights holders before communicating protected works your users upload to the public or making them available (Article 175-B(2)).
- If you have no authorization, avoid liability for unauthorized communication by showing, cumulatively, best efforts to obtain authorization; best efforts, to high industry standards of professional diligence, to ensure the unavailability of specific works for which rights holders gave you the relevant and necessary information; and diligent action on a sufficiently substantiated notice to remove or block the work, with best efforts to prevent its future upload (Article 175-C(1)).
- If your services have been available to the public in the Union for less than three years, you may rely on that exclusion by showing annual turnover below EUR 10 million, an average of fewer than 5 million monthly unique visitors in the previous calendar year, best efforts to obtain authorization, and diligent action on a sufficiently substantiated notice to remove or block; if you cannot show the visitor figure, show full compliance with Article 175-C(1)(c) (Article 175-D).
- On request, give rights holders adequate information on how your practices under Articles 175-C and 175-D work and on the use of content covered by licensing agreements, and tell your users in your general conditions that they may use works under the exceptions and limitations to copyright and about the complaint procedures (Article 175-E).
- Provide all users an effective and rapid complaint and appeal mechanism against the improper removal or blocking of works they uploaded, tell users of a removal or blocking and its grounds, process complaints without undue delay with human review of the decision, tell interested parties when content is restored, and run the procedures in Portuguese (Article 175-F).
What this law does
Article 175-A(1) defines an online content-sharing service provider as a provider of an information society service whose main purpose, or one of whose main purposes, is to store and give the public access to a significant quantity of protected works uploaded by its users, which the provider organizes and promotes for direct or indirect economic or commercial gain.
Article 175-A(2) excludes services such as non-profit online encyclopedias, non-profit scientific and educational repositories, open source software platforms, electronic communications providers, online marketplaces, and business-to-business and personal-use cloud services. Article 175-B(2) requires such a provider to obtain authorization from the rights holders in order to communicate protected works to the public or make them available.
Article 175-C(1) makes the provider liable for unauthorized communication to the public unless it shows, cumulatively, best efforts to obtain authorization, best efforts to ensure the unavailability of specific works for which rights holders supplied information, and diligent action on a sufficiently substantiated notice to remove or block the work and best efforts to prevent its future upload.
Article 175-D limits those conditions for a new provider whose services have been available to the public in the Union for less than three years. Article 175-E requires the provider to give rights holders adequate information on its practices on request and to tell its users in its general conditions about the exceptions and limitations to copyright and the complaint procedures.
Article 175-F(1) requires the provider to create and make available an effective and rapid complaint and appeal mechanism for users against the improper removal or blocking of works they uploaded. Article 175-F(5) requires complaints to be processed without undue delay and subjects decisions to remove or block uploaded content to human review. Article 175-F(7) requires the procedures to be available and conducted in Portuguese. Article 15(1) of the Decreto-Lei provides that it enters into force 15 days after its publication.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app operates a social platform.