Referral C-517/26 (Aranzadi La Ley, 21 May 2026)

Does the concept of ‘alteration’ within the meaning of Article 4(1)(b) of Directive 2009/24/EC 1 include a situation in which a third party, without the consent of the owner of the original computer program (consisting of a number of webpages offering a variety of legal content), offers the user the option of activating an IT application (‘extension’), available on a particular browser (Google Chrome), one of the functions of which is to provide access to the legal information services supplied by that third party, when visiting webpages hosted by the owner of the computer programs, with the result, if the user takes up that option, that browsing on the webpage or webpages hosted by the owner of the original computer program is temporarily halted.

Does the temporary modification of the so-called ‘HTML source code’ for the owner’s webpages, by the addition by the third party during the execution of the original program, without consent, of certain instructions which cause to open up on the user’s screen a modal window or dialogue box offering the user the options of remaining on the owner’s webpage or continuing his or her browsing on a webpage owned by the third party (which also offers legal content), constitute in itself an act of alteration which infringes the protection of the computer program within the meaning of Article 4 of Directive 2009/24/EC.

Could the third-party owner of the IT tool (an extension over which the owner retains technical control and from the effects of which it benefits economically) rely on the exception provided for in Article 5(1) of Directive 2009/24/EC, on the ground that, in order for its application to produce its effects on the original computer program, the cooperation of a user who has purchased the third-party extension acting on the browser is essential, even if that extension is used not for the purpose intended by the owner of the original computer program but for that intended by the third party.