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…

The latest large-scale reform of the Spanish Copyright Act was published on 5 November 2014.  The key aspects of the reform are discussed here.  The bulk of the opposition to the reform contends that two provisions of the Act, namely, the new regulation for private copying and the imposition of a “one-stop shop” system, breach the…

Is the mere accessibility of a copyright infringing website sufficient to establish jurisdiction in a Member State? The Court of Justice of the European Union says a resounding “yes” in Pez Hejduk C-441/13. The decision does not come as a big surprise, given the earlier (in)famous Pinckney C-170/12 ruling (reported on this blog here) –…

The first Danish court decision on blocking an infringing website selling replica products was issued on December 11, 2014. It was the Danish Maritime and Commercial High Court that issued the ruling, which orders Danish Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block access to the online store, Interior Addict. Interior Addict is a website which illegally…

“One could say that the CJEU by its decision in the Bonnier-case has “defended” or “safeguarded” the right of civil enforcement by right holders against direct online infringers.” As with enforcement of rights in the analogue environment, enforcement of copyright online presupposes that the infringer is identified or that an intermediary takes action. However, it can…

The CJEU’s ruling in the Scarlet v. SABAM case (C 70/10) is still fresh in our memories: court injunctions to install global and preventative filtering systems with a view to preventing copyright infringements are precluded. SABAM asked again for the same measures in the framework of the SABAM v. Netlog litigation. Again, the Belgian court…

by Linda Scales, solicitor, Dublin. A copyright controversy has been raging in Ireland this week. The SOPA/PIPA debate fuelled fears that an unpublished piece of secondary legislation would provide a regime similar to that proposed in the US. The Irish instrument was labelled “Ireland’s SOPA”, even though no one knew what the document contained. In…

Some legislative proposals raise considerable controversy beyond the national territory in which they are issued. The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a bill that is currently pending in the US House of Representatives, is one clear example of such a proposal. Aimed at fighting unauthorized trafficking of copyrighted content in the online environment, the proposed…

Spain’s newly elected Partido Popular has recently implemented the controversial Regulation that develops the Intellectual Property disposition contained in the Law for Economic Sustainability (Ley de Economía Sostenible), informally known as the Sinde law (Ley Sinde), after outgoing Culture Minister Angeles Gonzalez-Sinde. The main aim of the so-called Law is to protect the owners, creators…

This sentence summarizes quite well the decision of the Antwerp Court of Appeal of 26 September 2011 which it is abstracted from. The Belgian Anti-piracy Federation filed a cease and desist action against Telenet and Belgacom, two Belgian ISPs, in order to make them block The Pirate Bay’s websites in their respective networks. In first…