Upphovsrättslagen (Copyright Act), Chapter 6 b, Sections 52 i to 52 u, Online Content-Sharing Services

Section 52 i applies the chapter to information society services that have as one main purpose to store and give the public access to a large amount of works uploaded online by their users, where the provider organizes and promotes the works for profit and the service plays an important role on the content market by competing with other existing or potential online content services.

Section 52 j treats the service provider as itself transmitting to the public a work that a user makes available by uploading it to the service. Section 52 j also provides that section 18 of Lag (2002:562) is not to apply to the liability the Copyright Act lays down for such a transmission. Section 18 of Lag (2002:562) has since been repealed.

Section 52 k extends a licence the provider holds for transmission to the public to the user's own transmission, provided the user is not acting for profit or the user's activity does not generate significant revenue. Section 52 l frees the provider from liability for an unauthorized transmission under section 52 j if, where it has received a well-founded notice from the rightholder, it promptly blocks access to the content.

Section 52 l also requires, for that freedom from liability, that the provider has done what can reasonably be required to obtain authorization for the transmissions it makes on the service and to ensure that content infringing copyright in works for which rightholders have supplied relevant and necessary information is not made available on the service.

Section 52 m lifts the second requirement for a service that has been available to the public in the European Economic Area for less than three years, if its annual turnover is below the equivalent of EUR 10 million and its unique visitors in the preceding calendar year did not exceed 5 million per month on average. Section 52 n requires the provider, on request of a rightholder or a user, to give information about the measures it takes under section 52 l to prevent infringing content.

Section 52 o requires the provider to ensure that its measures to block access to content under section 52 l do not prevent lawful transmissions to the public to any appreciable extent. Section 52 o allows methods of automatic blocking to be used only to block content that can with a high degree of probability be assumed to infringe copyright. Section 52 o requires the user to be promptly notified when access to content is blocked.

Despite measures under section 52 l, section 52 p lets a user make non-infringing content available and make works available for quotation, criticism, review, caricature, parody or pastiche, and it requires the provider to inform users in its terms of use of these rights. When access to content a user uploaded has been blocked because of a measure under section 52 l, section 52 q requires the provider to have procedures to handle the user's complaint.

Under section 52 q complaints are to be decided promptly, the content is to be restored if the rightholder's request is not duly justified, and a decision not to restore access must be preceded by a manual review.

Section 52 r makes the provider liable for damage a user suffers if the provider intentionally or negligently breaches section 52 o. Section 52 s lets a court order a provider that breaches section 52 o or section 52 q, first or third paragraph, to take corrective action on pain of a periodic penalty, on an action brought by a user or by an organization that represents users. Section 52 u makes a contract term that restricts a user's right under the chapter invalid.

The chapter was inserted by Lag (2022:1712), which took effect on 1 January 2023 and lists Directive (EU) 2019/790 among its sources.