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Online Copyright Infringement

Online Copyright Infringement in practice

Another online shop is selling your photos, or a whole article of yours appears on someone else's website. The first step is not to write to the infringer but to secure the evidence. Once warned, they can make the content disappear without a trace, and infringement becomes much harder to prove. So before any demand, we preserve the content by a notarial record or a time-stamped capture.

What happens next depends on your goal. If you want the content taken down quickly, we send the platform a notice under Article 16 of the DSA. If you are seeking damages or know who the infringer is, a demand letter and a claim under the Slovak Copyright Act follow, with an application for interim measures if urgent. For large-scale piracy, we also prepare a criminal complaint.

What we help with

  • Securing evidence and notarial records of web content
  • Notices to platforms under the DSA
  • Demand letters and settlement negotiations
  • Court claims and interim measures before Slovak courts
  • Criminal complaints for large-scale piracy
  • Coordinating enforcement abroad

Worth knowing

What a notice to a platform must contain

Under Article 16 of the DSA: an explanation of why the content is illegal, its exact location, the notifier's details and a statement of good faith. Once it receives a sufficiently precise notice, the platform cannot claim it was unaware of the content.

Claims under the Slovak Copyright Act

Under Section 124 et seq. of Act No. 185/2015 you can seek an injunction, removal of the consequences, appropriate satisfaction including money, damages, surrender of unjust enrichment, publication of the judgment and information on the origin of goods.

Why send a demand letter

A letter before action opens the way to an out-of-court settlement, for example a retrospective licence. If the infringer ignores it, the letter serves as evidence of bad faith.

Common questions

  • You send the platform a reasoned notice of illegal content. The platform assesses it, removes the content or rejects the notice, and gives reasons for its decision. For content on large platforms this usually takes hours to days.

  • An injunction, removal of the consequences, appropriate satisfaction, damages and surrender of unjust enrichment, which is typically calculated as the licence fee the infringer would otherwise have paid.

  • Global platforms often apply their DMCA process to European content too. In the EU, however, the DSA provides a similar mechanism, and for Slovak platforms we rely primarily on it.

Related articles

Articles are in Slovak.

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This page is for general information, reflects Slovak law at the time of writing and is not a substitute for advice on your particular matter.