German courts turn to EU judges to clarify key questions in UMG’s piracy battle with Cloudflare
Germany’s highest court has asked the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) to clarify two core legal questions in the ongoing dispute between Universal Music Group (UMG) and Cloudflare.
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The first question asks whether simply providing hyperlinks to pirated content — rather than hosting it — can constitute “making a work available to the public,” i.e. copyright infringement.
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The second question concerns whether Cloudflare’s CDN-based caching counts as “hosting” (with full liability) or merely as “temporary storage” (potentially protected).
Depending on how the CJEU rules, the decision could reshape liability rules for CDN providers and linking sites across the EU — affecting anti-piracy efforts and obligations of internet-infrastructure firms.
