Op-Ed: “A mild sigh of relief for online platforms but uncertainty looms after CJEU judgment in YouTube/Cyando” by Bernd Justin Jütte

It is odd when a court commences a judgment by stating what the judgment, in fact, is not about. In the joined cases YouTube and Cyando (Joined Cases C-682/18 and C-683/18) the Court of Justice felt compelled to preface its analysis of a set of questions referred to it by the German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof) by underlining that the preliminary questions concern the application of the Information Society Directive and the E-Commerce Directive, and that they do not concern the interpretation of the Directive on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market (CDSM Directive).

It is the context that led the Court to clarify this even though the referring court had not even raised that issue. And indeed, t