Targeting the Right Question: What AG Rantos Left Open in Anne Frank Fonds

Abstract

This piece analyzes AG Rantos's Opinion in Anne Frank Fonds (C-788/24), on how to localize communication to the public online when a work is protected in one EU state but not in another. While welcoming the Opinion's conclusion that effective geoblocking keeps a publication outside Article 3(1) InfoSoc Directive, and that mere VPN circumvention doesn't change that, the piece argues that AG Rantos should not have sidestepped the Dutch Supreme Court's central question: whether communication to the public requires the content to be "targeted" at a state's audience — a test the CJEU already applies in trademark law, the database right, and the distribution right. A targeting test would better balance rightholder and user interests than the proposed accessibility-plus-geoblocking-exception model, particularly for libraries, archives, and museums that often don't know a work remains protected elsewhere.