A court ruling in favour of eBay last week in the UK High Court puts the IPR Enforcement directive, known as IPRED, to the  test. The case, brought by cosmetics firm L'Oreal,  is likely to go to the European Court for a further ruling.

The complaint brought by L'Oreal concerned  sales of alleged counterfeit goods on the eBay online auction site. The judge ruled that eBay is not liable for infringements by eBay users, and that was the headline in most of the media coverage. However, reading the judgement, it is evident that there are other issues at stake here.

In particular, the L'Oreal case rests on Article 11 of the IPR Enforcement directive. This says, in plain English,  that

Read more: L'Oreal v eBay judgement puts IPRED to the test

Pirate Bay defendants to go to jail and pay $3.5 million damages. Guilty of secondary liability for providing a search service. Intent more important than technical fact.

The  four men who founded The  Pirate Bay bit- torrent tracking site  have been found guilty  of "promoting other people's infringement of copyright laws," However, they have not violated copyright law, as is misleadingly reported in some media. Effectively, they have been judged guilty of  secondary liability for copyright infringement, and its implications could be serious for many other web services providers. The issue now is whether it would seem to set a precedent that  by providing a 

Read more: Pirate Bay jailed for secondary liabilty

Defence argues 'completely legal'. Prosecutor calls for jail sentences. The Pirate Bay hearing concludes - verdict awaited 17 April.

The trial of the four founders of the Pirate Bay by the Stockholm District Court, has concluded, and the judgement is expected on 17 April.

On the final day of the trial, the defence lawyer for the Pirate Bay founders argued that the torrent tracking technology used by the Pirate Bay is perfectly legal, and that is provides a passive search function - he said,   it is the site's users, not its owners, who decide what content is tracked. He said that it has not been established in the court  that the bulk of the material tracked by the site is copyrighted not that it has been exploited commercially, and that it has not been shown that the sites owners made any money from it. 

As I understand it, the commercial exploitation of copyrighted material is  a key test in the case, as is the editorial authority over the site content.

Read more: Pirate Bay - defence claims 'completely legal'