Welcome back for the second part of the C-590/23 Pelham II hearing commentary. In part one (here), we covered the interpretation of pastiche. However, a very interesting topic arose in the Court’s pre-emptive questions, and during the oral questions: the interaction of “pastiche” with Article 17 CDSM Directive. This was not originally part of the…

On 14 January 2025, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) heard oral arguments in the much-anticipated case C-590/23 Pelham II, where the German Federal Court submitted a request for preliminary ruling on the interpretation of “pastiche”. The purpose was to ascertain whether a two-second sample from a phonogram could fall under the…

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,…

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…

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…

Now that 2024 is behind us, it’s time to report on the fourth trimester. Here is our final roundup of that AI-rich year. This post marks the fourth year of running this series on our blog. In it, we provide updates on key developments in EU copyright law from October to December 2024, covering everything…

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…

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…