A work that has entered the public domain in certain European Union member states may be published free of charge on a website, even if it is still protected by copyright in another member state, provided that the website includes a “geoblock” designed to prevent access by Internet users accessing it from that other member state.
This principle was established by the Court of Justice in its July 9, 2026, judgment (in Case C-788/24) regarding the publication in Dutch of a scholarly edition of Anne Frank’s manuscripts on a website registered in Belgium, access to which was restricted by a “geoblock” that prevented it from being viewed from a Member State where the manuscripts were still protected by copyright.
The Anne Frank Fonds, the copyright holder of Anne Frank’s works, had therefore filed a lawsuit to establish a violation of its right of communication to the public, since in the Netherlands certain works by Anne Frank are protected until 2037 under a special transitional regime laid down by copyright law.
The Court was therefore asked to clarify whether a geo-blocking measure is sufficient to conclude that the intended audience of such a website is limited solely to users not affected by the measure, or whether the possibility of circumventing it—by using a VPN or a similar service—constitutes a factor that must be taken into account when assessing whether a communication to the public has taken place in the Netherlands.
The Court, citing previous rulings, held that if a work has been made available online without the implementation of technological protection measures, it must be understood that the copyright owner intended to make it available to all Internet users. If, on the other hand, such measures have been implemented, this means that the copyright owner has expressed the intention to grant access to the protected work only to a specific group of users and not to all users.
Finally, the ruling clarified that the potential circumvention of such measures by a VPN or similar service cannot, in itself, constitute a decisive factor in finding those measures to be inadequate and, therefore, ineffective.
In accordance with these principles, the Court ruled out the communication to the public of the scholarly edition of Anne Frank’s manuscripts in Member States where protection is still in force and the resulting infringement of the Anne Frank Fonds copyrights.
(Fabrizia Serpieri)
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