Copyright: an effective remedy against image-based sexual abuse in the UK Online publication date: Fri, 05-Jul-2024
by Smarnika Srivastava
International Journal of Intellectual Property Management (IJIPM), Vol. 14, No. 4, 2024
Abstract: Technological advances have led to the harm of sexual violence being perpetrated online, through image-based sexual abuse. While existing criminal and privacy laws against this harm are being strengthened to provide justice to the victims, the court process is tedious, time consuming and expensive, while the private images remain on the internet, thus continuing the harm. The UK copyright laws can be used to curb this spread. By relying on intermediary liability under the E-Commerce Directive 2000, victims can use the takedown notice approach to remove their images, which despite its drawbacks, remains to be effective. However, this approach can only be relied on by victims who are the authors/owners of the copyright in their private images. Often, victim's private images/videos are taken without their knowledge, resulting in their copyright belonging to the perpetrator. In such cases, I have argued that delivery-up of copyright to the victim will prove to be an appropriate remedy to take down such content from the internet.
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