15 May 2013

Dear Readers,

Key aspects of this Jusletter IT are questions of cloud computing, copyright law, liability of providers, as well as legal logic, formalization of law and legal linguistics. The catchword of «digital fundamental rights» is more and more heard; we provide a solid introduction with an analysis of relevant case law of the ECtHR and the ECJ. In the now increasingly more important technical issues are significant on the one hand practical aspects – representation of legal knowledge or advanced law office software – but on the other hand also theoretical approaches, such as the predictability of legal decisions. As new innovative research topics are presented: an IT-law concept of dominance of dominant companies and a concept of risk for automated decisions.

Two contributions deepen the already published analyzes of cloud computing. Carmen De la Cruz – Cloud Computing. Alter Wein in neuen Schläuchen? (Cloud Computing. Old wine in new skins?) – deals comprehensively with the challenges of this form of outsourcing. In addition to the questions in the infrastructure sector additional requirements are needed for the safety, the management tasks of the cloud provider and compliance issues. Rolf H. Weber and Dominic N. Staiger – Legal Challenges of Trans-border Data Flow in the Cloud – analyse the issues of cross-border cloud computing, especially on data protection.

Two articles deal with the important Tribune de Genève judgment, Swiss Federal Court 5A_792/2011. Alexander Kernen – Volle Verantwortlichkeit des Host Providers für persönlichkeitsverletzende Handlungen seines Kunden (Full responsibility of the host provider for personality infringing actions of his customers) – and Nik Schoch and Michael Schüepp – Provider-Haftung «de près ou de loin»? Abwehransprüche gegen Internet-Service-Provider im Immaterialgüter- und Wettbewerbsrecht im Lichte des Urteils des Bundesgerichts 5A_792/2011 vom 14. Januar 2013 (Provider Liability «de près ou de loin»? Defensive claims against Internet service providers in intellectual property and competition law in the light of the judgement of the Federal Court 5A_792/2011 from 14th January 2013). Under Swiss law, there is no privilege of liability for Internet service providers, resulting in a need for action of the law-maker.

Maria Grazia Rizzi and Georg Jakob – Von den Ursprüngen zur Gegenwart des Urheberrechts: Malerei (From the origins to the present copyright: Painting) – outline the histroy of copyright on the example of painting.

Rolf H. Weber and Ulrike I. Heinich – Zur Grundrechtsgüterabwägung bei der Durchsetzung von Urheberrechtsansprüchen im Internetkontext anhand der europäischen Rechtsprechung (The basic rights considerations in the enforcement of copyright claims in the Internet context by menas of European case law) address digital fundamental rights and deal in detail with the case law of the ECtHR and the ECJ on data protection, copyright and the duties of Internet service providers.

Aleksander Wiatrowski wants to develop in his thesis project «Abuses of Dominant Companies in the Area of Data Protection and Data Security» a new concept of «dominance by dominant companies» and describes in a short article the project: The «Dominance» in Abuses of Dominant Companies.

The legal logic as well as the application of mathematical methods in the law remain an important research topic. Rainhard Z. Bengez is working on a concept of predictability of legal decisions in the context of legal theory and legal informatics. He will introduce this concept in a series of articles, starting with an introduction in this Jusletter IT: Gedanken zu einer Erweiterung der Logischen Rechtslehre zu einer Computable Legal Justification Theory (Thoughts on a logical extension of the theory of law to a Computable Legal Justification Theory). Thomas Preiß – Die Entwicklung eines Risikobegriffs zur Anwendung auf den Einsatz automatisierter Systeme im Sinne des § 49a VStG (The development of a concept of risk for application concerning the use of automated systems within the meaning of § 49a VStG) – developes a method to measure the risk of automated administrative procedures. Of course, it requires a lot more effort to ensure that these methods are suitable for practical use.

Fritjof Haft – IT-Unterstützung in kontradiktorischen Gerichtsverfahren – das Projekt «Gaius» (IT support in contradictory court proceedings – the project «Gaius») – points to the innovative possibilities of legal informatics to efficiently shape contradictory proceedings (in particular civil litigation and administrative proceedings).

The increasing importance of legal linguistics shows the contribution of Günther Schefbeck, Tanja Wissik, Elena Chiocchetti and Michael Wetzel: Europäische Rechtssprache(n) und Pflege von mehrsprachigen terminologischen Ressourcen (European legal language(s) and maintenance of multilingual terminological resources).

Simon Schlauri – Die Notifizierbarkeit der SuisseID gemäss dem EU-Verordnungsvorschlag über elektronische Vertrauensdienste (The option of notification of SuisseID according to the EU Regulation on electronic trust services) – analyzes the options to include the SuisseID in the proposed EU system of electronic identification.

Dino Girardi and Monica Palmirani – Legal Issues and Economic Exploitation of Open Government Data – provide an overview of the state of Open Data discussion in the EU in the light of the modification of the PSI Directive.

Lastly Armin Horn brings a review of the commentary by Bauer / Heckmann / Ruge / Schallbruch (ed.), Verwaltungsverfahrensgesetz, Kommentar (Administrative Procedure Act, Commentary) hardback, 1st edition 2012. Its value lies in the comprehensive commentary on the legal provisions on E-Government in Germany.

Having said this, we hope you enjoy reading this issue!

Wien/Bern, in May 2013

Erich Schweighofer and Franz Kummer

INFORMATION LAW

Cloud Computing

Carmen De la Cruz

Cloud Computing is one of the most discussed topics: Is this mainly a marketing hype or does it lead to new legal issues and topics? A closer look at the different types of Cloud Computing and the related legal questions shows that a lot of topics may be well-known and can be treated based on well-proven models. However, the idea of mainly delivering services – handing data into the cloud – is linked to new challenges that may be added to the existing ones. Some of these challenges will be analyzed more in detail hereinafter.

Legal Challenges of Trans-border Data Flow in the Cloud

Rolf H. Weber

Dominic N. Staiger

Parties involved in cloud computing are constantly facing new legal challenges in regard to trans-border transfers of personal data. In particular cloud service providers face ambiguous European data protection laws which do not cater for the specific services they offer. The following contribution addresses the issues associated with trans-border transfer of personal data in the cloud and highlights potential solutions.

COPYRIGHT

Volle Verantwortlichkeit des Host Providers für persönlichkeitsverletzende Handlungen seines Kunden

Alexander Kernen

In its judgment 5A_792/2011 of January 2013, the Federal Supreme Court ruled on the liability of a host provider in connection with acts of his customers violating personal rights for the first time. Specifically, the person who provides the necessary technology for the blogger running a blog and makes the blog available on its server for retrieval (« blog-hoster ») was sued by the injured on an injunction and declaratory judgment. Reason for action were libelous passages in the text of the blogger. The Federal Supreme Court comes to the conclusion that provisions of Swiss law do not allow a privileged special treatment of the host provider. Competent would be – for that matter – the legislator.

Provider-Haftung «de près ou de loin»?

Nik Schoch

Michael Schüepp

The authors take the judgement of the Federal Supreme Court as an occasion to examine the question whether the considerations of the Federal Court would also apply to other defensive claims, i.e. claims that are not based on personal rights but based on competition law or intellectual property law. The principles established by the Federal Supreme Court weigh heavy on the online industry, the judgement, however, seems flawless under the current legal regime. The authors further analyse the need for legislative action as well as the options under the law in force to prevent «graves conséquences» as mentioned by the Federal Court in individual cases.

DATA PROTECTION

Von den Ursprüngen zur Gegenwart des Urheberrechts: Malerei

Mariagrazia Rizzi

Georg Jakob

Although the history of copyright and related rights might seem largely uncontroversial to the contemporary lawyer, several of its most intriguing details are intensely discussed by some scholars. Some researchers even try to trace the origins of copyright back to ancient Rome, although – as will be shown in the following article – sources support this scarcely. We will then describe how painting became a subject of modern copyright law, what problems this history causes today and how some of these problems might be solved

Zur Grundrechtsgüterabwägung bei der Durchsetzung von Urheberrechtsansprüchen im Internetkontext anhand der europäischen Rechtsprechung

Rolf H. Weber

Ulrike I. Heinrich

Apart from the expansion of communication opportunities, the Internet gains importance of being a potential «crime scene» for the infringement of intellectual property rights since no further technical knowledge is needed for accomplishing the duplication and distribution of image and music files. For ensuring an adequate protection of right holders in this context, legislators and courts are challenged to create tailored solutions. In particular, an appropriate balancing of interests between the freedom of expression/the freedom of information and the protection of intellectual property must take place and the duties of telecom operators, providers and platform operators are to be discussed.

LAW INFORMATICS

The «Dominance» in Abuses of Dominant Companies

Aleksander Wiatrowski

The existence of dominant companies such as Microsoft, Google, Facebook, etc. result in a dangerous situation in terms of abuses of data protection and data security legislation. It is important to specify the term «dominant» or «dominance» as, in my opinion, the existing definition from a competition law perspective does not apply to the situation concerning privacy and data protection. So far law has not presented any other sufficient way to describe «dominance».

LAW LINGUISTICS

Gedanken zu einer Erweiterung der Logischen Rechtslehre zu einer Computable Legal Justification Theory

Rainhard Z. Bengez

This work aims at the introduction and first motivation of a computable legal justification theory evaluating written legal justifications. This theory is part of the more general computable legal theory fostering the development of practical algorithms. Computable legal theory is an approach to overcome nowadays legal informatics role as a mere data warehouse or data mart respectively.

Die Entwicklung eines Risikobegriffs zur Anwendung auf den Einsatz automatisierter Systeme im Sinne des §49a VSTG

Thomas Preiß

The scope of this paper is to develop an abstract standard to assess risks of administrative procdures. As an introduction we identify the difference to «others» fields of risk research (eg effective fines, risk of accidents, risks of driver behaviour). We analyze the risk concept developed by Cranor to establish a legal risk analysis, then we formulate some ethical principles about the acting of authorities based on work of Böckenförde and Reeves. Finally, we present some results using Sartor's theory of factors and dimensions. These are used to define the aim of analysis performed by statistical software.

IT-Unterstützung in kontradiktorischen Gerichtsverfahren – das Projekt «Gaius»

Fritjof Haft

In the «Gaius» project an interdisciplinary team explores ways in which adversarial proceedings (including civil litigation and administrative proceedings) can be carried out more efficiently and with higher quality using IT support.

EDITORIAL

Editorial

Franz Kummer

Erich Schweighofer

Europäische Rechtssprache(n) und Pflege von mehrsprachigen terminologischen Ressourcen

Günther Schefbeck

Tanja Wissik

Elena Chiocchetti

Michael Wetzel

The article demonstrates the complexity and the special characteristics of the language of law and administration, in particular the language of lawmaking. The focus is on multilingual terminological resources in context of the European Union. In this area, database-driven devices, which are developing the terminological amplitude and should prepare for the lingual transformation, gain more and more in importance. The article points out, that these terminological resources, if they reach a certain dimension, cannot be cultivated and updated manually and that the quality of terminological entries in most cases suffers from it. "LISE" project starts here, in order to improve the terminological resources already in existence by the use of semi-automatic process and Best Practices.

Die Notifizierbarkeit der SuisseID gemäss dem EU-Verordnungsvorschlag über elektronische Vertrauensdienste

Simon Schlauri

The EU Commission adopted a proposal for a Regulation on electronic identification and trusted services for electronic transactions in the internal market for the attention of the European Parliament and Council in 2012. Besides a new regulation of electronic signatures and other trusted services the proposal also includes the mutual recognition of electronic means of identification between member states. The article examines the question of whether the pre-existing Swiss identification system SuisseID would meet the proposal's requirements for the notification which has to preceed such mutual recognition.

Legal Issues and Economic Exploitation of Open Government Data

Dino Girardi

Monica Palmirani

This paper is an overview on the state of the art of the Open Data Phenomena in the EU focused on legal issue and business exploitation of the PSI re-use. After an introduction concerning the European Commission Strategy Europe 2020 and the Digital Agenda for Europe, the research specifically deals with Action 3 of the first pillar of Digital Agenda for Europe«open up public data resources for re-use». The paper examines the legislation referring to the re-use of PSI in between de lege lata (2003, PSI Directive) and the legal issues arising from de lege ferenda (2011, Open Data Package). The analysis considers also some special issues like the anonymization and the de-anonymization of data. Furthermore the survey considers the business opportunities arising from the disclosure of the PSI.

Rezension: E-Government-Recht in Deutschland

Armin Horn

The commentary – Bauer / Heckmann / Ruge / Schallbruch (Hrsg.), Verwaltungsverfahrensgesetz – is an extensive comment on the administrative legal provisions on E-Government in Germany.