Donnerstag: US-Provider ohne Filesharing-Haftung, Finnland-Wahl ohne US-Cloud US-Gericht pro Provid
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| Source: Mastodon | Original article
A U.S. district court in New York ruled Thursday that a major American cloud provider cannot be held liable for users’ illegal file‑sharing activities, reinforcing the limited responsibility that service operators enjoy under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The decision, handed down in a case brought by a coalition of rights‑holders, hinges on the “safe harbour” provisions that protect platforms so long as they act promptly to remove infringing content once notified.
The ruling arrives as Europe grapples with the tension between the U.S. CLOUD Act – which permits American authorities to request data from foreign‑based servers owned by U.S. companies – and the EU’s ambition for digital sovereignty. Finland’s election commission announced on the same day that it will run the September parliamentary vote on a wholly European cloud stack, explicitly excluding U.S. hyperscalers. Officials cited the CLOUD Act and recent court precedents as reasons to avoid any risk that foreign law‑enforcement could access voter data.
Why it matters: the U.S. judgment solidifies the legal shield for cloud operators, potentially emboldening them to expand services without fearing copyright suits, while simultaneously sharpening scrutiny of where critical public data is stored. Finland’s move signals a broader shift among Nordic states toward “data localisation” for sensitive functions, a trend that could pressure global providers to offer EU‑jurisdictional alternatives or risk losing public‑sector contracts.
What to watch next: the European Commission is expected to issue guidance on CLOUD‑Act compliance later this month, and several other Nordic governments have hinted at similar cloud‑exclusion policies. Legal scholars will be monitoring whether rights‑holder groups appeal the New York decision, which could set a precedent for future infringement cases. Meanwhile, Meta’s announced AI upgrades and a U.S. court ruling that platforms can be sued for fostering social‑media addiction add to the regulatory maelstrom surrounding tech giants, suggesting that the balance between innovation, liability and sovereignty will remain a hotly contested arena throughout 2026.
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