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Online Copyright Infringement in Romania Against Foreign Creators: What You Can Do

This article explains how foreign creators and rights holders can respond when their works are uploaded, streamed or resold online in Romania without permission. It covers platform procedures, warning letters, civil and criminal options, and practical evidence tips tailored to cross-border cases.

For many creators and rights holders, Romanian users and businesses are an important part of the European audience: they buy digital products, stream content, license stock photos and music, and commission creative work. At the same time, foreign creators often discover that their works are uploaded, streamed, or sold in Romania without permission: pirated video channels with Romanian subtitles, unauthorized print-on-demand stores, or websites reselling premium content behind paywalls.Because Romania is an EU Member State and a party to the main international copyright treaties, foreign works enjoy essentially the same protection as Romanian works. That means you can act against online infringement connected to Romania even if you do not live or do business there, provided you know which tools to use and how the local system works.

This guide explains how online copyright infringement is treated under Romanian and EU law and what practical steps foreign creators can take. We will look at three pillars:

  • Legal framework: Romanian copyright law and the EU directives it implements.
  • Notice-and-takedown mechanisms: how to work with hosting providers and platforms connected to Romania.
  • Court actions and damages: when and how to escalate to litigation and what you can realistically expect in terms of remedies.

The focus is on civil and administrative enforcement for typical online scenarios (websites, platforms, marketplaces, social media), not on highly specialized sectors such as broadcast retransmission or collective licensing.

Legal Framework (Romanian copyright law, EU directives)

Romanian Copyright Law – Law no. 8/1996

The core source of copyright protection in Romania is Law no. 8/1996 on copyright and related rights, as repeatedly amended to align with EU law. It recognises and guarantees copyright over literary, artistic, scientific and other original works of intellectual creation and makes clear that protection arises automatically from the moment the work is created, without any formalities such as registration.

An up-to-date consolidated Romanian text can also be consulted in the version published by the Romanian Composers and Musicologists Union’s collecting society (UCMR-ADA), and an older English translation is available on the legi-internet.ro portal. For international context, the WIPO WipoLex entry for Law no. 8/1996 confirms that this is the main national copyright statute.

Like other civil law jurisdictions in the EU, Romanian copyright law distinguishes between:

  • Moral rights (for example, the right to be recognised as the author, to decide when a work is first made public, and to object to mutilation of the work), which are strong and, as a rule, cannot be waived.
  • Economic (patrimonial) rights, including the right to authorise or prohibit reproduction, distribution, rental and lending, communication to the public (including making available online), broadcasting, cable retransmission and the creation of derivative works or adaptations.

The law explicitly recognises that communication to the public includes making works available in such a way that members of the public may access them from a place and at a time individually chosen by them, which is the typical legal hook for online uses such as downloads or streaming. This wording appears both in the Romanian text and in English summaries of Law no. 8/1996 published by specialised legal portals and in academic commentary on Romanian copyright. These descriptions are consistent with the overview of Romanian copyright law prepared in English for comparative purposes.

Foreign creators and national treatment

Romania is a party to the Berne Convention and other major copyright treaties. As an EU member, it is also fully integrated into the EU copyright framework. Under the principle of national treatment, foreign authors whose works are protected in other Berne countries are entitled to the same copyright protection as Romanian authors, without any registration or formalities in Romania.

This approach is reflected in the structure of Law no. 8/1996 and in the English-language description of Romanian law, which notes that copyright is acquired irrespective of formalities and normally belongs to the natural person(s) who created the work, with protection for any original creation regardless of its value or purpose. This is consistent with the way the 2019 consolidated version of Law no. 8/1996 is presented in the WipoLex database.

For foreign creators, this means:

  • You do not need to register your work in Romania in order to act against online infringement.
  • Your work is protected from the moment of creation, provided it meets the relatively low originality threshold recognised in EU law.
  • Online uses that would be infringing in other EU Member States (for example, unauthorized streaming or file-sharing) will normally also be infringing if they target Romanian users or are carried out from Romania.

EU directives shaping Romanian online copyright law

Romanian copyright law in the online environment cannot be understood without the EU directives that it implements. The key instruments are:

  • Directive 2001/29/EC on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society (the InfoSoc Directive), which harmonises the reproduction right, communication to the public (including making available) and certain exceptions, reflecting the WIPO Internet Treaties.
  • Directive (EU) 2019/790 on copyright in the Digital Single Market (the DSM Directive), which introduced new rules for online content-sharing service providers and certain new exceptions and licensing mechanisms.
  • Directive 2004/48/EC on the enforcement of intellectual property rights (the Enforcement Directive), which harmonises civil enforcement tools such as injunctions, evidence preservation and damages, and whose objectives are summarised in the EU’s own overview of enforcement.

The EU has also adopted a horizontal regime for online intermediaries through Directive 2000/31/EC on electronic commerce, the e-Commerce Directive, and more recently the Digital Services Act (Regulation (EU) 2022/2065), which now updates and complements the safe-harbour and notice-and-takedown regime for digital intermediaries.

Romania has implemented these instruments in its national law. The e-Commerce Directive has been transposed through Law no. 365/2002 on electronic commerce, which expressly states that it implements Directive 2000/31/EC. More recently, Romania adopted Law no. 50/2024 to implement the Digital Services Act, designating the Authority for the Digitalization of Romania as the competent national authority and amending Law no. 365/2002 accordingly.

From a practical point of view, these EU instruments mean that Romanian courts and authorities must observe a minimum level of protection for copyright owners and a harmonised regime for hosting providers and platforms. They also enable pan-European enforcement strategies that combine national lawsuits with coordinated takedowns and blocking injunctions.

Enforcement tools in Law no. 8/1996

Law no. 8/1996 devotes an entire chapter to measures of protection, procedures and sanctions. Article 139 and following provisions allow right holders to seek recognition of their rights, a declaration that infringement has occurred, and compensation for the harm suffered. These provisions have been amended over time to transpose the Enforcement Directive, including rules on preserving evidence and obtaining information on infringers and intermediaries.

Academic commentary on Romanian copyright enforcement points out that Romanian courts can grant provisional and precautionary measures where the right holder can credibly show an ongoing or imminent infringement and a risk of irreparable harm. For example, a 2021 paper on copyright and related rights injunctions explains that, under Law no. 8/1996, rightholders (and certain collective management organisations or anti-piracy associations) may request provisional measures to conserve evidence, secure damages and even seize goods suspected of infringing copyright, and that these measures can also be ordered against intermediaries whose services are used in the infringement.

At the same time, studies focusing on online piracy enforcement in Romania note that blocking injunctions against Internet service providers (ISPs) are used relatively rarely compared to some other Member States, even though the legal basis exists. Online and broadcast piracy remain an enforcement challenge, which is one reason why the European Commission continues to monitor Romania’s compliance with EU copyright rules. In June 2025, for example, the Commission sent Romania a reasoned opinion for not correctly implementing certain aspects of the InfoSoc Directive and the DSM Directive, highlighting ongoing alignment issues in the digital context.

Notice-and-Takedown for Hosting Providers and Platforms

Why notice-and-takedown is central for online enforcement

In most online infringement scenarios the first and most efficient step is to have the infringing content taken down or access to it disabled, before you even consider going to court. This is particularly true in cross-border cases where:

  • The infringer is anonymous or hides behind domain privacy or pseudonyms.
  • The damage is ongoing but the commercial value of the case does not justify immediate litigation in a foreign jurisdiction.
  • The content sits on large platforms (marketplaces, social networks, video platforms) which already operate detailed IP-enforcement programmes.

Romanian and EU law encourage this strategy by combining two key ideas:

  • Hosting providers and platforms enjoy limited liability for user-generated content as long as they do not have actual knowledge of illegality and act expeditiously to remove or disable access once they obtain such knowledge.
  • Once they know about unlawful content, they must act quickly. Failure to act may expose them to liability or regulatory consequences, in addition to the primary infringer.

Safe-harbour rules for hosting providers

Articles 12–15 of the e-Commerce Directive set out safe harbours for mere conduit, caching and hosting. Romania has implemented these provisions in Chapter IV of Law no. 365/2002 on electronic commerce, under the heading “Service provider liability”. For hosting services, Article 14 of Law no. 365/2002 provides that a service provider which stores information supplied by a recipient of the service is not liable for that information if:

  • It does not have actual knowledge that the activity or information is illegal, or in the case of damages claims, it is not aware of facts or circumstances indicating that the activity or information could infringe a third party’s rights.
  • Upon obtaining such knowledge, it acts rapidly to remove the information or to disable access to it.

The law goes on to state that the service provider is deemed to have obtained knowledge of illegality when the illegal character of the activity or information is established by a decision of a public authority. However, the broader EU interpretation recognises that “knowledge” can also arise from other sufficiently precise and well-substantiated notices by right holders, a point regularly discussed in scholarly analyses of the EU hosting liability regime.

Law no. 365/2002 also imposes duties on service providers to notify competent authorities of apparently illegal activities carried out by their users and to supply information that would allow those users to be identified, when requested. Article 16 authorises public authorities to order providers to suspend transmission or storage of information, including by blocking access or removing content, and establishes a complaints mechanism and expedited court review of such decisions.

With the entry into force of the Digital Services Act and its Romanian implementing law, the safe-harbour regime is complemented by pan-European rules on notice-and-action procedures, transparency, trusted flaggers and risk mitigation for larger platforms. The Romanian Law no. 50/2024 designates the national Digital Services Coordinator and describes the monitoring and sanctioning scheme for non-compliant providers.

Working with global platforms (YouTube, Meta, marketplaces)

If the infringing content is hosted on large global platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok or global marketplaces, you will typically use their internal reporting tools rather than direct letters invoking Romanian law. These platforms usually provide:

  • Online copyright complaint forms that follow a standard template.
  • Automated systems such as Content ID for certain types of audio-visual content.
  • Repeat infringer policies that may ultimately result in account suspension.

When targeting Romania-specific infringing activity (for example, a Romanian-language pirate streaming site that relies on a global CDN or cloud provider), it is often more effective to combine:

  • A platform report that references the platform’s global terms and copyright policy.
  • A more detailed notice addressed to the underlying hosting provider (if identifiable), referring to its obligations under the e-Commerce Directive and Law no. 365/2002.

Because these providers operate globally, you usually do not need to rely on Romanian language only. However, including a brief reference to Romanian law and, if possible, a Romanian contact address (such as local legal counsel) can signal that you are prepared to escalate if the matter is not resolved.

Notice-and-takedown for Romanian or EU hosting providers

When the website or service is hosted by a Romanian-based company, or by an EU provider specifically targeting Romanian users, you can send a more formal legal notice. Although there is no single mandatory form under Romanian law, the notice should contain at least:

  • Your identification and contact details (including a postal address and email for correspondence).
  • A clear description of the protected work or subject matter (for example: “Photographic work X, first published on [date] at [URL]”).
  • Evidence that you own or control the rights in question (for example, contractual documentation, copyright notice, or public information about your authorship).
  • Precise identification of the allegedly infringing content, with specific URLs and, if helpful, screenshots and timestamps.
  • A brief legal explanation of why the use is unlawful, with reference to Law no. 8/1996 and, if appropriate, the InfoSoc Directive and Law no. 365/2002.
  • A concrete request: removal of the infringing content, disabling access from Romania or the EU, preservation of server logs and other identification data, etc.

You may also request that the provider:

  • Confirms in writing the measures taken and the timeline.
  • Preserves certain technical data that could help identify the uploader (IP addresses, account identifiers), subject to data protection rules and law enforcement cooperation frameworks.

Because Law no. 365/2002 allows any person claiming to be prejudiced by online information to lodge a complaint with the competent public authority, you can also consider a parallel complaint to the regulator. However, in practice, many cases are resolved directly between rights holders and providers through notice-and-takedown, especially where the provider seeks to maintain safe-harbour protection.

Evidence collection before and during notice-and-takedown

Before sending any notices, it is important to preserve robust evidence of the infringement. In cross-border cases, this is crucial because content may be removed quickly after a notice, leaving you with textual exchanges but no proof of what was originally online. A prudent evidence file will contain:

  • Full-page screenshots showing the URL bar, date and time, and the infringing content.
  • Archived copies of the page (for example, using independent web archiving tools) where permissible.
  • Downloaded copies of the infringing files, where technically and legally possible.
  • WHOIS and hosting information (from public databases or specialised tools) to identify domain owners and hosting providers.
  • Evidence of your own prior publication and ownership, such as original files with metadata, publication dates on your official channels, or contracts with publishers.

Under the Enforcement Directive and its Romanian implementation, courts can authorize wide-ranging measures to preserve evidence, including the taking or seizure of objects and documents that prove infringement, even when held by the opposing party or intermediaries. Academic analyses of Romanian practice emphasise that these tools can be applied in online cases, including ordered disclosure of banking, financial or commercial records in serious infringements carried out on a commercial scale.

A carefully documented notice-and-takedown campaign can therefore serve a dual purpose: it removes infringing content quickly and builds a paper trail that can be used later in court, if necessary.

Court Actions and Damages

When to escalate beyond platform and hosting remedies

Notice-and-takedown is fast and comparatively cheap, but it has limits. It does not normally compensate you for past damage, and persistent infringers can simply move to another host or domain. You should consider escalation to court when:

  • The infringement is systematic, large-scale or clearly commercial (for example, a subscription streaming site monetising thousands of your works).
  • The infringer is identifiable (a Romanian company or individual) or can be identified with reasonable effort.
  • The damage is material enough to justify legal costs and the time investment of litigation.
  • You need stronger remedies such as disclosure of information, seizure of assets, or blocking injunctions against intermediaries.

Romanian courts hear both civil copyright cases and, in serious scenarios, criminal cases, though the latter require the involvement of prosecutorial authorities. For foreign creators, civil proceedings are typically the main route for compensation and injunctions.

Civil actions under Law no. 8/1996

Law no. 8/1996 grants right holders and certain related entities (for example, collective management organisations) standing to bring civil actions to:

  • Have their rights recognised.
  • Obtain a finding that infringement has occurred.
  • Secure compensation for the damage suffered.

These claims are pursued before the competent civil courts under the rules of the Romanian Civil Procedure Code, supplemented by the specific provisions of the copyright law and, where applicable, Law no. 365/2002. The law allows for both main actions on the merits and provisional measures designed to preserve rights and evidence pending a final decision.

Academic commentary on copyright injunctions in Romania notes that, where the right holder can credibly show an ongoing or imminent infringement and a risk of irreparable harm, the court may order provisional measures such as:

  • Conservation of evidence (for example, seizure or copying of servers, logs or documents).
  • Measures to secure the remedy of the damage, including freezing of assets and bank accounts.
  • Seizure or taking under control of goods suspected of infringing copyright.
  • Measures ordered against intermediaries whose services are used by third parties to infringe copyright.

These possibilities are expressly linked in the literature to the implementation of the Enforcement Directive’s provisions on evidence and provisional and precautionary measures in Law no. 8/1996.

Injunctions and blocking orders

Under the Enforcement Directive, Member States must ensure that right holders can obtain injunctions not only against infringers but also against intermediaries whose services are used by third parties to infringe intellectual property rights. This is reflected in Romanian law both in Law no. 8/1996 and in Law no. 365/2002, which explicitly addresses measures that service providers must take when ordered by public authorities or courts.

In practice, copyright owners may ask Romanian courts to:

  • Order the infringer to stop making the work available online and to refrain from doing so in the future.
  • Order intermediaries (such as ISPs or hosting providers) to block access to specific websites or URLs, or to disable access to infringing content.
  • Order domain registrars or other service providers to implement specific technical measures (for example, DNS blocking).

European comparative research on blocking injunctions shows that Romania, like several other Member States, has the legal framework needed for such measures, but actual use has historically been limited, and courts apply proportionality tests to balance enforcement with freedom-of-expression and access-to-information rights. The EUIPO’s report on dynamic blocking injunctions in the EU confirms that blocking remedies are now part of the mainstream enforcement toolkit across Europe, even though practical implementation varies from country to country.

For foreign creators, injunctions and blocking orders are particularly useful where:

  • The infringer is outside the EU or difficult to identify, but access to the infringing site from Romania can be blocked at the ISP level.
  • You wish to coordinate enforcement with actions in other Member States, using similar blocking relief to restrict access within the EU.

Damages and financial compensation

Romanian copyright law and EU enforcement rules are aligned on a basic principle: damages should, as far as possible, compensate the right holder for the actual harm caused and the unfair profits obtained by the infringer, while also being dissuasive.

Under Law no. 8/1996, right holders can claim compensation for both material damage (economic loss) and moral damage (for example, harm to reputation or to the integrity of the work). Legal commentary on Romanian copyright enforcement notes that damage assessment typically takes into account:

  • Lost licensing income or diminished market value of the work.
  • Unfair profits gained by the infringer, especially in commercial-scale online piracy or unauthorized resale.
  • The extent, duration and wilfulness of the infringement (for example, repeated uploads despite prior notices).
  • The impact on the author’s moral rights, such as distortion of the work or removal of credits.

At EU level, Article 13 of the Enforcement Directive requires that, where the infringer acted knowingly or with reasonable grounds to know, damages must take into account all appropriate aspects, including negative economic consequences (such as lost profits), any unfair profits made by the infringer and, in appropriate cases, moral prejudice. Alternatively, Member States may allow courts to set damages as a lump sum based on elements such as the amount of royalties or fees that would have been due if the infringer had requested authorization.

Romania has implemented the Enforcement Directive’s approach in its national law. While courts remain free to assess damages case by case, they are expected to apply these criteria. Legal practice in Romania confirms that:

  • Compensation is generally based on proven damage and unjust enrichment, not on automatic statutory sums.
  • Moral damages may be awarded in appropriate cases, especially where there is reputational harm or serious violation of moral rights.
  • In serious or repeated cases, civil remedies can be combined with criminal sanctions under the criminal provisions of Law no. 8/1996 and the Romanian Criminal Code.

For foreign creators, this means that a well-prepared claim should contain:

  • Evidence of actual financial loss (for example, licensing history, typical fees, lost business, price erosion).
  • Evidence of the infringer’s profits, where available (for example, advertising revenue, subscription income, traffic and monetisation data).
  • Clear explanations of the moral impact (for example, association of the work with offensive content, removal of credits, damage to reputation).

It is also important to remember that, under Romanian law and the Enforcement Directive, courts may order the losing party to reimburse reasonable legal costs. This can be a significant factor when deciding whether to litigate, especially in disputes with commercial infringers in Romania.

Criminal enforcement

For particularly serious infringements, especially those carried out on a commercial scale or involving organized piracy, Romanian law provides for criminal sanctions. Law no. 8/1996 contains specific offences related to copyright and related rights, and criminal enforcement has been mapped in detail in international profiles of Romania’s intellectual property criminal enforcement system.

Criminal investigations are normally initiated by the specialised structures of the Romanian Police and, where appropriate, the Border Police, often in cooperation with the Romanian Copyright Office (ORDA) and customs authorities. For foreign right holders, criminal enforcement is usually considered where:

  • The infringement is clearly organised, large-scale and profit-driven.
  • Civil remedies and platform takedowns have proven insufficient or ineffective.
  • There is a public interest dimension, for example, in major piracy networks or repeat offenders.

Criminal proceedings run in parallel with civil actions and follow their own rules on evidence and damages. In some cases, full payment of civil damages to the injured party can influence sentencing and, under certain conditions, may even lead to the application of specific legal mechanisms regarding impunity or mitigation, as illustrated in Romanian case law. However, criminal enforcement is not a substitute for a carefully planned civil strategy.

Practical roadmap for foreign creators

Putting all this together, a pragmatic enforcement roadmap for a foreign creator or rights holder dealing with online infringement connected to Romania might look like this:

  1. Identify and document the infringement. Collect URLs, screenshots, timestamps, downloads and any hosting or WHOIS information. Preserve this evidence before sending takedown requests.
  2. Map the intermediaries. Determine whether the content is on a major global platform, a Romanian or EU host, a CDN, or a local ISP, and whether any payment providers or advertising networks are involved.
  3. Use platform tools first. File structured copyright complaints through the platform’s internal processes. Where possible, enrol in programmes like Content ID or brand protection portals that give you more control.
  4. Send formal notices to hosting providers. Where you can identify the host, send a detailed written notice referring to Law no. 8/1996 and Law no. 365/2002, requesting swift removal or disabling of access and preservation of relevant logs.
  5. Consider regulatory complaints. For stubborn cases, explore complaints to the relevant Romanian authorities (for example, the Digital Services Coordinator under the DSA framework), especially if the hosting provider appears unresponsive to clear notices.
  6. Assess the case for civil action. With specialised Romanian counsel, evaluate jurisdiction, applicable law, strength of evidence, potential damages, and enforcement prospects against the infringer and intermediaries.
  7. Seek provisional measures if necessary. In urgent cases, consider applying for provisional injunctions, evidence preservation or blocking orders to prevent further damage and secure proof.
  8. Pursue civil damages. Where justified, bring a civil action to obtain damages, injunctions and cost recovery, relying on the Enforcement Directive’s standards as implemented in Romanian law.
  9. Escalate to criminal enforcement in extreme cases. For organised, commercial-scale piracy or recidivism, coordinate with law enforcement and, where appropriate, lodge criminal complaints.

Because the legal and practical landscape continues to evolve – particularly under the DSM Directive and the Digital Services Act – it is advisable to revisit your enforcement strategy regularly and to work with local counsel who follow Romanian and EU developments closely.

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