A conference jointly organized by the Department of Law of the University of Cyprus and the H2020 project reCreating Europe – Nicosia, 31 October – 1 November 2022     The University of Cyprus, together with the Horizon 2020 project reCreating Europe, funded by the European Commission, is conveying the conference “Rethinking copyright flexibilities”. The…

As a matter of principle, the exercise of the exclusive rights under copyright is the author’s individual prerogative:  it is the author who decides whether they wish to authorize the reproduction or communication to the public of their works (the same goes for the performer, the producers, the broadcaster or the news publisher).  Exceptionally, copyright…

Parts 1 to 3 of this post (originally published in “Auteurs & Media”) summarising case law of the German Bundesgerichtshof from 2015 to 2019 are available here, here and here.         VII. Copyright contract law (Sections 31 et seqq. UrhG) Right of remuneration (Sections 32 et seqq. UrhG) German copyright law stipulates…

Part I of this post introduced the recent emergence of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), explained their basic characteristics and what they can represent. In this Part II we discuss copyright law aspects of NFTs, with a focus on the EU copyright acquis.   Where Copyright Law meets Blockchain As anticipated by the examples in Part I…

The Estonian Authors’ Society (EAÜ) sued Tallinn Concert Club OÜ and Worex Music OÜ, who jointly organised two public concerts but did not acquire licences for the public performance of copyrighted works. The court satisfied the claim in full and emphasised that the author cannot exercise his or her rights (therefore cannot legally waive his…

Part I of this blogpost was dedicated to the background which led to Articles 8-11 of the CDSM and to the concept of out of commerce works. Part II critically overviews the core of the mechanisms established by the Directive. The dual regime of the Directive The crux of the provisions certainly lies in the…

Introduction On 17 April the new EU Directive on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market (the DSM Directive) was adopted, following intense negotiations in the Council and the European Parliament. The Directive builds on a proposal put forward by the European Commission in September 2016, which itself stemmed from several studies and…

In an article recently published in the JIPITEC (and available here), I examined parts of the ongoing copyright reform process drawing on a case study on the Fair Internet for Performers Campaign. This process has been characterised by strong discourses centred on ‘fairness’. Using discourse analysis, I found the concept of fairness to be mostly…

The Tallinn Circuit Court finally and definitively determined the action in the “blank tape levy” court case. This landmark court case had been pending since February 2013, when the authors’, performers’ and phonogram producers’ collecting societies initially filed their complaint against the Government of the Republic of Estonia. During the litigation, the case was reviewed…