The Estonian Film Industry Cluster, Estonian Association of. Audiovisual Authors (EAAL), Estonian Screenwriters' Guild (ESG), Estonian Film Directors Guild (EFG) and the Estonian Organization for Copyright Protection (EAKO) advised the Ministry of Justice and Digital Affairs that the blocking measure planned as part of amendments to the Copyright Act is vital to restrict access within Estonian territory to content that infringes on copyrights and related rights.

"In Lithuania, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, the United Kingdom and Ireland, blocking measures have been applied to hundreds of internationally known online platforms that infringe on copyright and distribute large volumes of unlicensed content to the public, causing significant harm to content creators," a representative for the industry organizations wrote.

The EAKO noted that it has identified a website with an Estonian country code top-level domain, lordfilm.ee, which is in fact of Russian origin and known for the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted content.

"As with other such sites, Lordfilm operates through multiple different domains, and the Estonian country code top-level domain is just one of many," a representative of the organization wrote.

"However, it is through this particular domain, for example, that films by Taska Film — such as "Class Reunion," "Class Reunion 2: A Wedding and a Funeral," "Class Reunion 3: The Godfathers," "Melchior the Apothecary" and "Melchior the Apothecary: The Ghost" are made publicly available without authorization," they noted.

The representative added that current law does not allow them to be protected by the Estonian Internet Foundation (EIS) or the Consumer Protection and Technical Regulatory Authority (TTJA).

The Ministry of Justice and Digital Affairs confirmed that it acknowledges the concerns raised by filmmakers and copyright advocates and is considering moving forward with blocking measures at the legislative level.

The ministry noted that if the main issue for rights holders operating in Estonia lies not with major platforms, but with digital platforms registered in Estonia, then under the Digital Services Regulation, they must indeed turn to the TTJA — though the authority's powers are limited.

"We acknowledge that under the Copyright Act, the TTJA does not have the authority to issue injunctions to information society service providers ordering the removal of content that infringes copyright or related rights from their web interfaces, the restriction of access to such web interfaces, or the addition of a warning for consumers when accessing these web interfaces," it stated.

According to the ministry, preventing rights violations on foreign platforms under current law is even more challenging.

"For that reason, we proposed in last year's legislative intent the possibility of introducing additional administrative legal measures to protect copyright and related rights in the context of the right to make works available to the public — that is, domain name system (DNS) blocking and IP-based blocking," a ministry spokesperson explained in a letter to Estonia's film industry reps.

"Based on the feedback received on the legislative intent, developing such a measure is possible, however IP-based blocking, for example, did not receive broader support," they added.

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