“The Radio Company cannot be declared guilty for breach of copyright (illegal use of musical works), although no written agreement has been concluded. In Latvia, criteria for stipulation of the amount of remuneration are not given in the Copyright Law.” In 2006 the Autortiesību un komunicēšanās konsultāciju aģentūra / Latvijas Autoru apvienība, the Copyright and Communication…

An Italian administrative court says yes. Directive 29/2001/EC on copyright and related rights in the information society introduced the principle that EU Member States may authorize individuals to make copies of copyrighted audio, visual and audio-visual works, for private use, without the need to request authorization to right holders, subject to the general condition that…

On 15 March 2012 the CJEU has ruled two cases where it had been asked to decide whether producers of phonograms (or the collecting society on their behalf) are entitled to obtain equitable remuneration when a user allows its clients to hear the phonogram by way of background music in a place subject to his…

On 9 February 2012, the Court of Justice of the European Union issued its judgment in the case Martin Luksan v. Petrus van der Let (Case C-277/10) opposing a film director to a film producer on the exploitation rights of the film “Fotos von der Front”. The case was brought by the Wien Handelgericht (Commercial…

Patents Court London, 19 January 2012, Hoffman v Drug Abuse Resistance Education. A charity infringed copyright in photographs by including them in its website withouth the author’s permission. The fact that the charity was under a good-faith impression that it had permission to use the photographs, as they appeared in a website that was covered…

By Prof. Valérie-Laure Benabou, Université de Versailles (St-Quentin). France is currently modifying, in emergency, its legislation on private copying levy and more generally on private copying after the ECJ decisions Padawan and ThuisKopie. The reason for this urgency is twofold: substantial and procedural. The French Council of State (Conseil d’Etat) has held in a decision…

On 6 September 2011, General Advocate Verica Trstenjak released her Opinion on case C-277/10 (the original German version of the Opinion is available here, other language versions here). The case deals a.o. with the controversial cessio legis provision of the Austrian Urheberrechtsgesetz (Copyright Act – UrhG). According to this provision included in Art. 38(1) UrhG,…

The summer is no longer quiet for the communications departments of most public sector organizations across the Netherlands! The age long practice of circulating hard copies of newspaper clippings among the employees of an organization is seriously compromised following a decision of the Court of appeal of Leeuwarden. On 13 July, the Court ruled that…

On 19 November 1992, the European Council adopted the Directive 92/100/EEC on rental right and lending right and on certain rights related to copyright in the field of intellectual property (now replaced by Directive 2006/115/EC), which provides an exclusive right to authorize or prohibit the rental and lending of originals and copies of copyrighted works….

In a somewhat surprising move, on 12 July 2011 the lower house of the Spanish Parliament urged the Government to abolish the so-called “canon digital” (the private copying levy on digital media) and replace it by a “less arbitrary and indiscriminate system” that provide rightsholders with a “fair and equitable remuneration based on the effective…