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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jacob Miller" data-source="post: 67350" data-attributes="member: 5063">Hey all! I wanted to share some initial thoughts on this article and highlight a few potential discussion points for how this story and certain others could be relevant for applicants this cycle. These will be quite brief, so it would be great to see some more folks' opinions added!Firstly, on the point of the specific piece of regulation in Australia, it is worthwhile pointing out that this is only likely to be of limited importance for London lawyers on a day-to-day basis. Only those working on certain tech-related matters with Australian-based elements will, for now, need to be particularly aware of the minutae of the particular piece of regulation.A development in a similar space that London lawyers will need to remain cognisant of, however, is the introduction of Article 17 of the Copyright Directive, a piece of EU-level regulation. Article 17 imposes highly controversial obligations on Big Tech providers  (AKA: internet intermediaries) like Facebook and Google by making them directly liable for copyright breaches of their users. This might seem a little confusing, so let's look at a brief example: Joe Bloggs wants to watch the latest season of a TV show for free, instead of paying for a download or streaming service. He logs onto his computer and uses google to find 'downloaddodgymovies.com' and proceeds to download illegally-uploaded free versions of the TV show. In this scenario, the website has committed a breach of copyright by uploading these files, and Joe Bloggs has committed a breach of copyright by downloading it. Theoretically, the makers of the show (or those with a legal interest in it) could sue for these copyright breaches, but, in practice, this is next to impossible due to the nature of the internet and also the cost-benefit balance would render it completely impractical for filmmakers. Article 17 would allow the show's makers etc to sue Google for permitting the website to be accessible, instead. This would evidently massively increase big tech's litigation exposure and trading risk, hence its massive unpopularity with legislatures. More about the legal element of this Article can be found in <a href="https://www.nelsonslaw.co.uk/article-17/" target="_blank">this article.</a> In terms of similar historic cases for copyright breaches of tech providers, the <a href="https://onlinelaw.wustl.edu/blog/case-study-am-records-inc-v-napster-inc/" target="_blank">Napster case</a> remains one of the seminal discussion points on this general issue. The UK Government has already confirmed, however, that it will not directly copy this provision into UK law post-Brexit. Why is this? Well, there are several different elements to consider, but arguably the biggest is that the Government wants London (and the UK more generally) to become a hotspot for tech investment, and having a less onerous regulatory landscape is one way to achieve this.Why, then, do London lawyers have to be aware of Article 17 any more than the Australian legislation discussed above? Well, that's quite simple: London lawyers will do far more work which has multijurisdictional elements concerning one of the EU 27 than it will Australia. To that end, they will still be expected to advise on matters of EU law for long onto the future. Most major firms already have specialist Brexit advisory teams in place, so the navigation of these regulatory nuances will be highly important for big tech clients receiving advice from London offices. Finally, the differences in the regulatory landscape will result in parallel lines of advice needing to be given for all major tech companies on an ongoing basis. This particular consideration will affect more than just Brexit specialist teams as the London legal market settles into post-Brexit advice-giving across the entire firm.So while we've strayed somewhat off-topic from the original article, I do feel the Article 17 developments, in a very similar space to the Australian regulations, are of massive importance and are also representative of a paradigm shift towards the developed world beginning to increase the amount of regulation that major tech providers are subject to. What do you think?</blockquote>

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