The Polish government has filed a complaint against the new DSM Directive, and more specifically against its art. 17. While it will be a long time until the CJ EU issues a decision, the complaint makes it likely that the battle for the rules on intermediary liability is not over; it has just been moved…
GS Media – the questions The ‘linking saga’ initiated by the Svensson decision of the CJEU back in 2014 has taken a new turn with today’s GS Media judgment. Of course, it would be more appropriate to call it a ‘communication to the public’ saga, but I suspect that the origin of the Svensson decision…
For quite a long time nothing special has been happening in Polish copyright law. Some court decisions here and there (in all fairness unlikely to be called ground-breaking) and some new legislative initiatives (that will be worthy of presenting if eventually passed). However, yesterday (June 23, 2015) the Polish Constitutional Tribunal issued a decision on…
The Court of Justice delivered its highly anticipated decision on linking. A breath of relief is allowed: linking seems to be legal. But when one looks a little closer, disturbing things begin to emerge. First things first. The decision in Case C‑466/12, resulting from a request for a preliminary ruling from a Swedish court (Nils…
How the Polish broadcasting law on must-carry and must-offer makes broadcasters choose whether to infringe copyright and licensing contracts or the Polish Broadcasting Act. This post is about a rare mixture of folly and incompetence that is fortunately unlikely to leave any durable traces on the face of copyright law in Europe. However, the utter…
The Polish Ministry of Administration and Digitisation has initiated discussion on the law providing free access to public resources. The Ministry has made available on its webpage a document entitled “Draft Guidelines for the Proposal of the Act on Open Public Resources” and has invited interested parties to comment. Thus a process of “open access…
“The Polish Parliament is of the opinion the draft proposal does not adequately explain why these goals can be “better” realised on the EU level. “ Friday, October 12th 2012 was packed with action in the Polish Parliament (Sejm), because on that day the prime minister subject his government to the vote of confidence and…
“With a bit of pathos one may say that the CJEU has restored the old exhaustion principle to its full glory in the digital age. In order to do so the Court did not hesitate to be adventurous with legal interpretation and has also opened new fields for discussion.” On July 3 the CJEU delivered…
On April 24, 2012 the Advocate General Yves Bot delivered his opinion in the UsedSoft case (C-128/11) concerning exhaustion in digital products that have not been distributed on a material carrier. I think this may be one of the more interesting and bold opinions in the area of copyright law, although I am aware the…
The clouds of dust raised by the turbulent discussion about ACTA in Poland seem to be slowly settling and the time has come to make some evaluations. What has happened with ACTA in Poland has surely caught the attention of the world (or at least Europe), but perhaps the scale of it is still underestimated….
