The Parliament of Ukraine adopted long-awaited notice-and-takedown procedure to help rights holders protect copyright and related rights on the Internet

On 23 March 2017, the Parliament of Ukraine has overridden the President's veto and repeatedly adopted the Law of Ukraine "On State Support of Cinematography in Ukraine" (the "Cinematography Law"). The Cinematography Law also introduces amendments to the Copyright Law, providing copyright owners with a long-awaited notice-and-takedown procedure to combat copyright infringement on the Internet.

As per the established procedure, a holder of the copyrighted work has the right to send a takedown notice to the website or webpage owner. If the latter fails to satisfy the claim, the rights holder then has the right to send a takedown notice to a hosting provider. Hosting provider should resume assess to the respective content if the website or webpage owner objects to the takedown notice and within 10 working days the rights holder has not provided a confirmation of commencement of the respective court proceedings.

Notably, the established procedure is limited only to the following copyrighted works: music, audiovisual works, software, video, audio, and broadcasts (programs) of broadcasting organizations.

To benefit from the notice-and-takedown procedure, the rights holder must act through Ukrainian attorney-at-law only, i.e. a lawyer, who meets certain professional criteria, has passed a bar exam, and obtained an attorney-at-law certificate.

The Cinematography Law still requires the President’s signature and official publication in order to take effect. Since the President's veto has been overridden, the President has no choice but to sign the Cinematography Law.

While it remains unclear how the new regulations will be enforced, the implemented notice-and-takedown procedure is expected to become an effective tool for fighting online piracy.

We are preparing a comprehensive overview of the notice-and-takedown procedure which will be presented in the next issue of our Brands and Trends newsletter.

For more information, please contact Oleksandr Padalka and Oleg Klymchuk.