As we enter a new year, we would like to take this opportunity to pass on our best wishes for 2022 to all of our readers, as well as reflect on developments in copyright over the past year. Despite its challenges, last year was another busy one in the copyright world, with ongoing European copyright…

This post is based on the chapter “Audiovisual Coverage of Sports Events and Copyright Law: Originality in the Details?” in Natalie Helberger, Joost Poort, Martin Senftleben, Mireille van Eechoud, Stef van Gompel (eds.). Intellectual Property and Sports: Essays in Honour of P. Bernt Hugenholtz, Kluwer Law International, 2021. The economic value of football broadcasting has…

Welcome to the fourth and final trimester of 2021 round up of EU copyright law! We started this rubric in the beginning of 2021. In this series, we update readers every three months on developments in EU copyright law. This includes Court of Justice (CJEU) and General Court judgments, Advocate Generals’ (AG) opinions, and important…

Welcome to the third trimester of 2021 round up of EU copyright law! In this series we update readers every three months on developments in EU copyright law. This includes Court of Justice (CJEU) and General Court judgments, Advocate Generals’ (AG) opinions, and important policy developments. You can read the first and second trimester round…

On 17 June 2021, the CJEU delivered its judgment in C-597/19 Mircom. It held that uploading (including automatic uploading) of pieces of a file containing a protected work on peer-to-peer (P2P) networks infringes the making available right under article 3(1) and (2) of the InfoSoc Directive when a user actively chooses to use sharing software…

Welcome to the second trimester of 2021 round up of EU copyright law! Apologies to readers that this one comes a bit late. In this series, we update readers every three months on developments in EU copyright law. This includes Court of Justice (CJEU) and General Court judgments, Advocate Generals’ (AG) opinions, and important policy…

The so-called “conditional irresponsibility” of online content-sharing service providers (OCSSPs) with regards to copyright infringements is a never-ending, vexing, and daunting topic not only for scholars (see here, here, here and here), but also for the European Court of Justice itself (CJEU). The latter has recently rendered its eagerly awaited decision on the joined cases…

As readers of this blog will be aware, on 22 June the European Court of Justice (CJEU) handed down its ruling in joined cases C-682/18 (YouTube) and C-683/18 (Cyando) concerning the liability of online platforms for copyright-infringing uploads made by their users. Two specific platforms were at issue: the popular video-sharing platform YouTube and Uploaded,…

In its long-awaited Opinion on an action brought by Poland to annul certain parts of Article 17 of the Directive on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market (CDSM Directive), Advocate General (AG) Saugmandsgaard Øe demarcates the borders of permitted filtering of users’ uploads. If followed by the Court of Justice of the…

It certainly feels like the CDSM Directive has been the hottest topic in copyright law for quite some time now. If we had to be more specific and identify one main protagonist, the answer would unequivocally be: Article 17. Since its birth with the European Commission’s proposal, all the way through to the guidance from…