Ministers from six European countries (Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, The Netherlands and Sweden) have written a joint letter to the European Commission regarding the need for a legislative proposal on rules and boundaries of international application of EU law on copyright and neighbouring rights. The English version of the letter is available here. The letter…
Being an academic is a vocation. We are not in it for the money (hopefully), but mostly (hopefully) for the impact that we can make on our students’ and colleagues’ lives, as well as to contribute to the process of healthy law and policy-making. It is a job with lots of responsibility, joys, surprises and…
The European AI Office is currently facilitating the drawing-up of the General-Purpose AI Code of Practice (the “Code”). The European Commission published the first draft of the Code on 14 November 2024. Further drafts are to be prepared, with the final version of the Code forecast to be released by 2 May 2025, in accordance…
A few weeks ago, the Spanish Ministry of Culture released a legislative proposal aimed at introducing extended collective licensing (ECL) for the development of general-purpose AI models. The first of its kind, the “Draft Royal Decree to regulate the granting of extended collective licenses for the massive exploitation of works and other subject matter protected…
The long-awaited and much anticipated judgment of the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (“IPEC”) in Waterrower (UK) Limited v Liking Limited (t/a TOPIOM) [2024] EWHC 2086 (“WaterRower”) was finally handed down last month. IP practitioners and the wider design community have been eagerly awaiting the decision as it was expected to be the first UK decision…
Yesterday, the European Copyright Society (ECS) published its Opinion on the CJEU MIO/konektra cases C- 580/23 and C-795/23 (originality and infringement test of works of applied art). The Executive Summary is reproduced below and the full Opinion is available here: ecs-opinion-mio-konektra.pdf Executive summary Background. In Cofemel, the CJEU recognized that (i) the standard test…
As the discussion on AI regulation is intensifying around the globe, the Australian Government’s Department for Industry, Science and Resources has recently announced Safe and responsible AI in Australia: Proposals paper for introducing mandatory guardrails for AI in high-risk settings. The Proposals Paper is strongly influenced by the EU AI Act, which is cited on…
Introduction The interaction between the AI Act (Regulation 2024/1689) and the exceptions for text and data mining (TDM) in the CDSM Directive is one of the most important topics in EU copyright law today. One particularly controversial point of intersection is the AI Act’s attempt, through recital 106, to give extraterritorial effect to its copyright-related…
Allegations against Marvel and one of its top writers fail for the second time. Action-adventure characters from the Captain America and Spider-Man franchises were not unlawfully copied from the self-published comic book series of a relatively unknown author, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has held. The court, in affirming an Atlanta…
In the first part of this post on the Kneschke vs. LAION decision by the German Hamburg Regional Court (“Court”), we explored the Court’s key findings regarding the operational step in a generative AI model, and the decision on the exceptions for scientific research text and data mining (“TDM”) and temporary reproductions. Now, in this…
