The European Union is working on a dramatic change to the regime that governs the liability of online intermediaries established with the E-Commerce Directive (Directive 2000/31/EC). Art. 14 offered a safe harbour for hosting service providers who do not have actual knowledge of infringing content and who, on obtaining such knowledge, act “expeditiously to remove…
This post was first published on the Kluwer Trademark Blog In a judgement of April 2018, the Regional Court of Hamburg has ruled on the use of original advertising material by non-authorized dealers and on how trademark law can bypass copyright law (308 O 231/16). The plaintiff manufactures saddle bags and other high quality cycling…
To ensure you don’t miss out on interesting IP law developments reported on our other IP blogs, we will, on a regular basis, provide you with an overview of the top 3 most-read posts from each of our IP law blogs. Here are the top posts from March, April and May. Top 3 Kluwer Copyright…
The dismissal of a copyright infringement plaintiff’s claims against music publisher Sony Corporation of America and other related defendants pursuant to a mandatory arbitration provision in the agreement that the plaintiff had signed upon entering Sony’s songwriting contest did not warrant an award of attorney fees to Sony as a prevailing party under the Copyright…
14 April 2018 saw the entry into force of Spanish Royal Decree-Law 2/2018, of 13 April, amending the wording of the Spanish Copyright Act. This reform transposes two Directives into Spanish law, namely: Directive 2017/1564 of the European Parliament and of the Council on certain permitted uses of certain works and other subject matter protected…
Almost seven years ago, Directive 2011/77/EU – also called the Term Extension Directive – was passed. As mentioned in the Impact Assessment that accompanied the Proposal for the Directive, its general objective was to promote music production in the EU. The Impact Assessment also referred to specific objectives, which included contributing to enhancing the welfare…
A lawsuit brought by figure skater Oksana Baiul accusing NBC Sports of failing to pay her royalties owed for a video production of her ice skating performance in “Nutcracker on Ice” was barred by res judicata, the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco has held. A decision of the federal district court in Los…
A recent decision of the Munich Regional Court marks the first-ever blocking order in Germany against a copyright infringing website (judgment of 1 February 2018 – BeckRS 2018, 2857; English translation available here). If confirmed by higher courts (the judgment is subject to ongoing appeal proceedings), the decision will indeed have paved the way for…
The High Court of England and Wales recently gave judgment in Cantel v Arc ([2018] EWHC 345 (Pat). Of most interest for this blog is the aspect of the case which considers when an infringing party has the requisite knowledge to be liable for secondary acts of infringement (such as importation and sale). The case…
Sampling is a technique used in the music industry which utilises parts of pre-existing recordings in order to create a new music composition. Although sampling has been a common practice and a widely-used method in many modern music productions, its legality under EU law is still to be determined. From the perspective of European copyright…
