The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) defines the principle of cumulative protection under the systems for protection of designs and of works, in order to clarify the circumstances in which designs and models may additionally be considered a “work” and be entitled to the protection conferred by copyright under the InfoSoc Directive….
The question of whether the plaintiffs’ allegedly infringed lyrics were sufficiently original to be copyright-able was a fact-intensive issue that should not have been determined on the pleadings. The U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco has revived a copyright infringement lawsuit against pop star Taylor Swift and others over song lyrics allegedly copied and…
Earlier this month, the Constitutional Tribunal of the Republic of Poland issued a long-awaited judgment on the assessment of constitutionality of Article 79(1)(3)(b) of the Copyright and Related Rights Act (judgment of 5 November 2019, reference no. P 14/19). This provision entitles the entity whose copyright has been infringed to demand from the infringer a…
The Estonian Authors’ Society (EAÜ) sued Tallinn Concert Club OÜ and Worex Music OÜ, who jointly organised two public concerts but did not acquire licences for the public performance of copyrighted works. The court satisfied the claim in full and emphasised that the author cannot exercise his or her rights (therefore cannot legally waive his…
The Estonian Authors’ Society (EAÜ) sued Tallinn Concert Club OÜ and Worex Music OÜ, who had jointly organised a public concert without having a licence for the public performance of copyrighted works. The court held that the defendants must be held solidary liable for the illegal public performance of copyrighted works, as the obligation to…
Whether the parties to an agreement had intended to transfer the copyrights as part of its overall transfer of intellectual property was a question of material fact that should not have been decided by the court on summary judgment. An agreement between two affiliated companies did not unambiguously prohibit the transfer of copyrights as part…
On 29 July the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) finally rendered its long-awaited judgment in Case C-476/17, Pelham v Hütter and Schneider-Esleben., together with its judgments on two other cases: Case C-516/17, Spiegel Online GmbH v Volker Beck and Case C-469/17, Funke Medien NRW GmbH v Bundesrepublik Deutschland. All three cases are…
In a highly unusual move, the Court of Appeal has set aside the first instance judgment in Nicholas Martin v Julia Kogan [2017] EWHC 2927 and ordered that a new trial take place in the IPEC, but this time before a different judge. In its judgment, Julia Kogan v Nicholas Martin & others, [2019] EWCA…
Although the defendant had allegedly illegally used the claimant’s software on only three days (over a period of two months), the court found it justifiable to award monetary damages in an amount equal to the standard yearly licence and maintenance fees for this software. The court held that this was the “normal” fee the defendant…
The French Supreme Court sets out, for the first time since the ECJ Deckmyn case of 2014, the criteria for the copyright exception for parody. Case date: 22 May 2019 Case number: 18-12718 Court: Court of Cassation of France A full summary of this case has been published on Kluwer IP Law.
