Belgium, CJEU, Collective management

(Crowell & Moring LLP and UCLouvain - Saint Louis Bruxelles) and (Crowell & Moring, Brussels)/ /Leave a comment

Background On 8 September 2022, the Brussels court of appeal delivered a long-awaited judgment in a case between the collective management organisation “Belgian Association of Authors, Composers and Publishers” (“SABAM”) and a wide array of music festival organisers in Belgium, the overarching Federation of Music Festivals in Flanders (“FMFF”) and British direct licensing company Pace…

Collective management, Communication (right of), Reimbursement, Reproduction (right of)

(Crowell & Moring LLP and UCLouvain - Saint Louis Bruxelles)/ /2 Comments

As a matter of principle, the exercise of the exclusive rights under copyright is the author’s individual prerogative:  it is the author who decides whether they wish to authorize the reproduction or communication to the public of their works (the same goes for the performer, the producers, the broadcaster or the news publisher).  Exceptionally, copyright…

Belgium, Collective management, Legislative process, Remuneration (equitable)

(Crowell & Moring LLP and UCLouvain - Saint Louis Bruxelles)/ /Leave a comment

The Belgian legal order has recently welcomed a new legal code:  the Code of Economic Law (CEL).  Laws are not systematically arranged in codes in Belgium: there are some codes (such as the judicial code, the criminal code, codes of various types of taxes etc.) as well as countless separate laws, acts and regulations for…

Communication (right of), European Union, Infringement, Reproduction (right of), Software

(Crowell & Moring LLP and UCLouvain - Saint Louis Bruxelles)/ /Leave a comment

The book “The Variable Scope of the Exclusive Economic Rights in Copyright” recently published in Kluwer’s Information Law Series is the result of my doctoral research (which led to a doctoral dissertation defended at Vrije Universiteit Brussel in 2011).  This article provides an overview of the research described in the book, followed by a more…

Conference, Moral rights

(Crowell & Moring LLP and UCLouvain - Saint Louis Bruxelles)/ /Leave a comment

In 1993, the Belgian chapter of International Literary and Artistic Association (ALAI) organised an international conference in Antwerp on the moral rights of the author. This year, more than twenty years later, the international copyright community will gather in Brussels to discuss the Moral rights in the 21st century.  The central theme of this conference…