European Union

Digital Single Market, European Union, Exceptions and Limitations, Legislative process, Text and Data Mining (TDM)

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The global research community generates over 1.5 million new scholarly articles per year. Text and data mining (TDM) enables individuals to analyse such large amounts of data, to categorise that data, and to unravel the underlying patterns in order to attain new knowledge, and to create new databases. That being said, utilisation of TDM in…

Digital Single Market, European Union, Legislative process

, (Latham & Watkins LLP) and (Latham & Watkins, Belgium)/ /Leave a comment

On 27 February 2018, the European Union (EU) adopted the EU geo-blocking regulation (the Regulation), which will enter into force by the end of the year. The Regulation prohibits unjustified geo-blocking, and other forms of discrimination, based on customers’ nationality, place of residence, or place of establishment. The Regulation is particularly relevant to all businesses…

Digital Single Market, European Union, Legislative process, Making available (right of), Reproduction (right of)

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On 14 September 2016, a proposal for a Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market saw the light of day. The proposal is part of the EU copyright reform package, which has as its objective to modernise EU Copyright rules for the digital age, thereby attaining the objectives set out earlier in the Digital…

Brexit, European Union, Legislative process, United Kingdom

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The draft Brexit Withdrawal Agreement between the EU and the UK, which was published by the European Commission on 28 February 2018, provides for continued protection in the UK of registered or granted IP rights. According to article 50 (1) of the draft agreement, the holder of a EU trade mark, design or plant variety right,…

CJEU, Damages, Enforcement, European Union, Infringement, Injunction, Legislative process, Liability, Remedies

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In an in-depth analysis for the European Parliament, the author has looked at liability of online service providers with regard to infringements concerning copyright protected content. In particular, the paper tries to answer the question of whether regulatory action is needed in relation to the liability of online service providers for copyright protected content. The…

Case Law, CJEU, European Union, Exceptions and Limitations, Germany, Infringement

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The exceptions for reporting of current events and quotation facilitate the functioning of the media. On 27 July 2017, the Bundesgerichtshof (BGH) submitted several questions to the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU or Court) on the balance between copyright exceptions and the fundamental freedoms of information and the media, as well as the…

Case Law, CJEU, European Union, Netherlands, Originality, Subject matter (copyrightable)

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Whether taste constitutes protectable subject-matter under EU copyright law is one of the questions which the CJEU will have to answer in the near future. Indeed, the Dutch Court of Appeals of Arnhem-Leeuwarden has, in the course of an appeal procedure (only available in Dutch), turned to the CJEU for a preliminary ruling on the…

Brexit, Case Law, CJEU, Denmark, European Union, Germany, Legislative process, United Kingdom

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As we enter a new year, we would like to take this opportunity to pass on our best wishes for 2018 to all of our readers, as well as reflect on developments in copyright over the past year.  Last year was a busy one in the copyright world, with a number of landmark CJEU decisions,…

Case Law, CJEU, Collective management, European Union

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This post was first published on the new Kluwer Regulating for Globalization Blog. On September 14, 2017, the EU Court of Justice issued a preliminary ruling in Case C-177/16, Akka-Laa, on excessive pricing in the collective management of copyright licences. In 2013, the Latvian Competition Council fined Akka-Laa for abusing its dominance by imposing too…

Case Law, CJEU, Communication (right of), European Union, Infringement, Italy, Liability

(Institute for Information Law (IViR)) and (Universidade Católica Portuguesa)/ /Leave a comment

Introduction and background Case C-265/16, VCAST, concerns the question of whether the private copying exception covers the services of an online platform that allows users to store copies of free-to-air TV programmes in private cloud storage spaces. In his opinion of 7 September 2017 (discussed here), Advocate General (AG) Szpunar proposed a mixed answer to…