Court of Justice 15 January 2026, C-788/24 (Anne Frank Fonds v Anne Frank Stichting and Others.)

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In this Opinion (Case C-788/24), Advocate General Rantos advises the Court of Justice that Article 3(1) of Directive 2001/29/EC does not require a work's online publication to be specifically addressed to the public of a particular country in order to constitute a 'communication to the public' in that country, but that publication on a website subject to effective, state-of-the-art geo-blocking—potentially supplemented by non-technical deterrent measures—does not constitute such a communication in the blocked country, even where users may circumvent the geo-blocking via a VPN or similar service. The Advocate General further opines that a VPN service provider cannot be held liable as the author of a communication to the public in the blocked country unless it actively encourages unlawful circumvention of the geo-blocking measures. The Opinion thus seeks to balance the copyright holder's rights under Article 17(2) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights against the freedom of expression and information of publishers under Article 11, concluding that imposing unreasonable technical obligations on publishers in public domain countries would be disproportionate.AI