As we enter a new year, we would like to take this opportunity to pass on our best wishes for 2016 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,…

The German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) has ruled on two cases concerning internet access providers’ obligation to block access to websites providing links to predominantly illegal content. In these two landmark decisions, the BGH has paved the way for website blocking in Germany. Where protected content is offered illegally, directly or via link providers,…

Decision Oberlandesgericht (Court of Appeal) Hamburg of July 1, 2015, file no. 5 U 87/12 and Landgericht (District Court) Munich I of 30 June 2015, file no. 33 O. 9639/14 YouTube is the most popular video-sharing website in the world. As it is not entirely free of videos that infringe third party copyrights, it is…

Case I ZR 177/13 of November 17, 2014: Moebelkatalog [Furniture Catalogue] published here. According to a recent ruling of the German Highest Civil Court, the Bundesgerichtshof (“BGH”), the copyright exception for “incidental inclusion of a work or other subject matter in other material” (Article 5 (3) lit. i) Copyright Directive 2001/29) has to be interpreted…

On 16th April 2015 the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) delivered its final judgment in a lengthy legal standoff, which began its journey through the judiciary in 2009. The judgment is not yet available but is discussed in a press release here.  Since that time libraries and publishing houses have fought with one another…

“What has not been clarified though is the aspect of unfair competition.” On 21st of October 2014 the Court of Justice of the European Union delivered its order in a preliminary ruling procedure (C-348/13), which was referred to the CJEU by the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) in May 2013.  As yet, only the…

“According to Art. 13 of the German Copyright Act (“CA”) the author has the right to be identified as the author of the work. He may determine whether the work shall bear a designation of authorship and which designation is to be used.” The District Court of Cologne (Landgericht Köln) apparently never sleeps. After its…

It doesn’t  happen every day that copyright law and its daily application receive such an overwhelming media coverage. Germany’s biggest news portals, the public service broadcasters and major newspapers all reported about a case that appears to be a  routine job for a copyright lawyer. In the last two weeks a wave of cease and…

By Valentina Moscon, Scholarship holder at the Max Planck Institute & University of Trento The Italian Parliament recently approved a new law concerning the valorization of culture (Law of October 7, 2013, n. 112, G.U. n. 236, 8.10.2013). The law includes, in section 4, a regulation for Open Access (OA) to scientific publications. With this new…

“Concerns have been expressed by the German blogosphere that this mere “Lex Google” will put bloggers and smaller news-aggregators under the risk of being targeted by mass legal procedures of the publishers and that quotation rights are undermined.” It is no exaggeration to say that nearly the whole German copyright community is waiting for the next…