“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…

“A take-down notice which generically refers to the titles of the infringing videos, without specifically indicating their URLs, is not sufficient to determine the “actual knowledge” of the hosting provider.” On May 5, 2014, the Distric Court of Turin has given a preliminary ruling on the proper content of the take-down notices in copyright infringement…

“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…

“In other words, the initial communication by the copyright holder already encompassed the potential public that subsequently accessed the content via the links” The long-awaited judgment of the CJEU in the Svensson case, judgment of 13 February 2013 in (C-466/12). The legal definition of internet links has been a widely-discussed subject in recent times, pitting…

The Court of Justice delivered its highly anticipated decision on linking. A breath of relief is allowed: linking seems to be legal. But when one looks a little closer, disturbing things begin to emerge. First things first. The decision in Case C‑466/12, resulting from a request for a preliminary ruling from a Swedish court (Nils…

“For the ECJ, in the meaning of Article 5(3) of the Regulation 44/2001, a harmful event may arise from the possibility of obtaining a reproduction of a work from an internet site accessible within the jurisdiction of the court seised.” In its judgement Pinckney v. KDG Mediatech AG of 3 October 2013 (case C-170/12), the…

The right to exploit a recording “in the form of a phonogram published for commercial purposes”, includes the right to exploit it not only in the form of a tangible medium, such as a vinyl record or a CD, but also in the form of a downloadable digital file. The judgement of 11 September 2013…

“A young photographer, Ladislav Bielik, did what came naturally. He raised his camera and shot back.” Last week, people in Slovakia and Czech republic were commemorating the 45th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of  former Czechoslovakia. In August 1968, about 500,000 Soviet troops and most of their Warsaw Pact allies invaded Czechoslovakia, with tanks to halt…

“The occasional use of an unusual expression – such as “she has a black belt in shopping, so uh …” to describe the shopping behavior of Endstra’s wife  – is not enough to make a copyrighted work of an otherwise banal or trivial designed conversation.” Amsterdam Court of Appeal, 16 Juli 2013 (Endstra heirs vs….

“The BGH thus insinuates that framing may be a yet “unnamed right of exploitation” within the scope of Art. 15(2) Copyright Act.” On 16th May 2013 the first Senate of the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH), delivered its judgment in another case revolving around the issue of hyperlinking or framing. If one had hoped…