The government will have to pay the software developer only $150,000 for its infringement. The U.S. Navy will be required to pay just over $150,000 in damages for its installation of virtual reality software on nearly 500,000 computers without authorization, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has held. The court of appeals,…
The European Copyright Society (ECS) has published its Opinion on copyright and generative AI. The Executive Summary is reproduced below and the full Opinion is available here and here. Executive Summary The ECS considers that the current development of generative artificial intelligence (AI), under the regulatory framework set up by the Directive on Copyright…
Following the successful launch of the Information Law Series Archive in September 2024, ten more volumes have been made freely available on the IViR website. These include the groundbreaking and much-cited dissertations by Martin Senftleben on copyright and the three-step test, Mireille van Eechoud on applicable law in copyright, and Ashwin van Rooijen on software…
Part 1 of this post provided an overview of the relevant provisions of the AI Act and explored enforcement via Section 823(2) of the German Civil Code. This part 2 will look at enforcement via Section 3a of the German Act Against Unfair Competition, compare the two methods of enforcement and set out some conclusions….
The EU AI Act contains some provisions that have a copyright connection. Examples are the obligation for providers of general-purpose AI models to establish a policy to respect the rights reservation in Art. 4(3) DSM Directive 2019/790 (Art. 53(1)(c) AI Act) and their obligation to provide a sufficiently detailed summary about the content used for…
Claims arise out of publication of textbooks in electronic format. Several textbook authors, purporting to represent a class, have stated a claim for breach of contract arising out of publisher McGraw Hill LLC’s unilateral decision to cease or reduce royalties for the authors’ textbooks sold in electronic form (“ebooks”), the United States Court of Appeals…
As we enter a new year, we would like to take this opportunity to pass on our best wishes for 2025 to all of our readers, as well as reflect on developments in copyright over the past year. Last year was another busy one in the copyright world, with an increasing focus on the relationship…
Introduction The 2019 Copyright in the Digital Single Market (DSM) Directive is a complex legislative text that raises several questions of legal interpretation. Increasingly, these questions are making their way to national courts. A recent example is the Dutch case ruled upon by the Amsterdam District Court (“the court”) on 30 October 2024. The plaintiffs…
There is news from Germany on the EU liability concept for indirect infringers. The German Federal Supreme Court (Bundesgerichtshof – BGH) has ruled on the liability of online marketplaces for copyright infringement by their users when uploading copyright infringing photographs. This is the BGH judgment of 23 October 2024 – I ZR 112/23 – Manhattan…
In a recent chapter, Ryan Abbott and Elizabeth Rothman present the utilitarian argument for granting copyright in AI-generated works (hereafter AIGW). Aspects of their argument also find expression in the recently launched UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) consultation on AI. In response, this post outlines my scepticism. The utilitarian arguments supporting copyright in AIGW are…
