The Spanish Supreme Court has annulled some of the rules regulating the system of financing fair compensation for private copying through the General State Budget on the grounds that they are incompatible with EU law. The system that had been in place up until now was analysed by the CJEU through a number of questions…

A full report of this case has been published on Kluwer IP Law and the case has been discussed on the Kluwer Copyright Blog here. The Court of Justice of the European Union concluded that Directive 93/98/EEC harmonising the term of protection of copyright in the EU does not have the effect of restoring or…

In a recent decision (case C-169/15), the Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled that Directive 93/98/EEC harmonising the term of protection of copyright in the EU does not have the effect of restoring or reviving rights that, prior to its entry into force (1 July 1995), were for any reason in the…

In this decision, the CJEU tackled an international jurisdiction issue, since what was essentially under debate in the main proceedings was the applicability of Article 5(3) of Regulation 44/2001 on jurisdiction in civil and commercial matters, which enables, in matters relating to tort, delict or quasi-delict, persons domiciled in one Member State to be sued…

The question referred to the CJEU in the Austro-Mechana case (C-572/14) was whether a claim for payment of fair compensation for private copying, as per Article 5(2)(b) of Directive 2001/29, can be considered to be a matter relating to tort, delict or quasi-delict and, therefore, whether Article 5(3) of Regulation 44/2001 on jurisdiction in civil…

IN CASES OF INFRINGEMENT OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS, COMPENSATION FOR MORAL DAMAGES IS COMPATIBLE WITH PECUNIARY DAMAGES CALCULATED ON THE BASIS OF “HYPOTHETICAL ROYALTIES”.  Judgment of the CJEU of 17 March 2016 in Liffers, C-99/15 BACKGROUND This CJEU decision stems from legal proceedings brought in Spain by Mr. Liffers, the director, screenwriter and producer of…

In response to a reference from the Brussels Court of Appeal, the CJEU held that Article 3(1) of Directive 2001/29/EC (the Infosoc Directive) must be interpreted as meaning that a broadcasting organisation does not carry out an act of “communication to the public” when it transmits its programme-carrying signals exclusively to signal distributors without those…

On 5 March 2015, the Spanish National High Court convicted the administrators of the website Youkioske of an aggravated intellectual property offence and of promoting and establishing a criminal organisation.  The judgment can be deemed ‘historic’ since it is the first time that the operators of a downloads site have faced a penalty of this…

“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…