According to the Vienna Commercial Court, YouTube is not a mere host provider. Host providers are privileged, and shall not be liable for information stored if the provider does not have actual knowledge of illegal activity or information, and the provider immediately removes or blocks information when it becomes aware of the illegal content. According…
As the endgame for the negotiations on the long-awaited new European Directive on copyright in the Digital Single Market is finally on, the debate focuses very much on article 13 of the proposed directive. A lot has been published already about the consequences of this proposal for the future of ‘the-internet-as-we-know-it’, but what are its…
Although the author of a four-page treatment describing a concept for a television show failed to assert plausible copyright infringement claims against the producers and the creators of the popular musical drama television series “Empire,” the author should have been given permission to amend his complaint, the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco has…
On 18 July, the High Court (Arnold J) in The Football Association Premier League Ltd v British Telecommunications Plc & Ors [2018] EWHC 1828 (Ch) granted an extension of a 2017 order requiring BT and others to block access to streaming services which gave unauthorised access to live Premier League football matches during the 2018/19…
Internet access providers should be compensated for website blocking requested by IP right owners. In a nutshell, this is what the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom ruled back in June. The entire saga, however, has much wider implications and should be properly considered beyond the UK borders. Background The Cartier case arose from a…
The federal district court in Portland, Oregon, erred in declining to award attorney fees to a film distributor as the prevailing party in a copyright infringement suit against a BitTorrent peer-to-peer network user who had stipulated to judgment of infringement, the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco has ruled. The district court abused its…
It is an exciting time – the European Union (EU) has started the long-awaited negotiations with Australia on a Free Trade Agreement (FTA). What could creative industries expect in terms of the intellectual property chapter, and copyright law in particular? Should Australia be afraid of the EU requiring an additional layer of copyright protection, as…
The percentage of Internet users in Europe that occasionally download or stream music, films, series, books or games illegally has decreased between 2014 and 2017. The decrease is greatest for music, films and series. Meanwhile, expenditure on legal content has increased since 2014. This follows from the Global Online Piracy Study that the Institute for…
Introduction Since the British government has triggered Art. 50 TEU it can be considered a certainty that the United Kingdom will leave the European Union. What is not clear to date are the exact terms that will shape the future relationship between the two parties – and thus the situation of British stakeholders in the…
North Carolina, the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, and various state officials acting in their official capacities—who were sued in a copyright infringement action brought by a videographer and his affiliate who produced photos and videos depicting a salvaged ship of Blackbeard the pirate—were entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity from suit in…
