In a decision that could have serious implications for websites providing real time streaming of free to air broadcasts, the English Court of Appeal has recently handed down its Judgment in the case of ITV Broadcasting Limited and others v TV Catchup Limited and others [2015] EWCA Civ 204. The outcome is that the action…
Lord Hoffman (former Court of Appeal judge and presently at Queen Mary University) spoke about what can be done to harmonise the law. He said that the governments of most jurisdictions accept that judges have some choice in how the law is developed. There is then a range of views of how much regard should…
Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with an earlier decision by the Slovak Supreme Court about unauthorised use of a famous Tank Man picture in the Slovak media. The case has now hit the Slovak Constitutional Court, thus providing it with the first ever opportunity to discuss the interface of copyright and freedom…
On 26 March, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) handed down Case C-279/13 C More Entertainment, the latest decision regarding the right of communication to the public in the context of websites providing links to content. In this particular case, C More provided live broadcasts of ice hockey matches on the Internet for payment of…
On 5 March 2015, the Spanish National High Court convicted the administrators of the website Youkioske of an aggravated intellectual property offence and of promoting and establishing a criminal organisation. The judgment can be deemed ‘historic’ since it is the first time that the operators of a downloads site have faced a penalty of this…
On March 5, 2015 the Court of Justice of the European Union (the ‘Court’ or ‘CJEU’) ruled on Case C-463/12 Copydan Båndkopi v Nokia Danmark A/S (‘Copydan’). The case marks the seventh occasion on which the Court has ruled on the issue of the private copying limitation under art. 5(2)(b) Directive 2001/29/EC (the ‘Directive’), following…
On 1 May 2015 a new, second, ‘anti-piracy’ law [1] will take effect in Russia. This law amends the provisions on preliminary interim blocking injunctions for intermediaries introduced by the first anti-piracy law, which took effect on 1 August 2013. In the opinion of this blogger, the new law, like its predecessor, will barely affect…
On June 24, 2014, the Austrian Supreme Court ruled that the Austrian internet service provider UPC Telekabel Wien GmbH must block access to copyright infringing websites. The Supreme Court noted that, in accordance with the ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union in Case C-314/12, such an injunction leaves its addressee to determine the specific measures to…
An auction house may transfer the responsibility of paying the artist’s ‘droit de suite’ from the seller to the buyer. This judgment, rendered by the European Court of Justice on 26 February 2015 in response to a reference from the French Supreme Court, will satisfy the auction houses and art dealers in Europe (Christie’s France…
A brief outline of the copyright protection granted for architectural designs In Article 2/1, the Berne Convention counts architectural works, together with plans, sketches and three-dimensional works relative to architecture, as copyrightable subject matter. Turkish law treats architectural creations in two different categories: as “literary works” and “works of fine art”. Accordingly, under Law No…
