A recent decision of the Munich Regional Court marks the first-ever blocking order in Germany against a copyright infringing website (judgment of 1 February 2018 – BeckRS 2018, 2857; English translation available here). If confirmed by higher courts (the judgment is subject to ongoing appeal proceedings), the decision will indeed have paved the way for…
The High Court of England and Wales recently gave judgment in Cantel v Arc ([2018] EWHC 345 (Pat). Of most interest for this blog is the aspect of the case which considers when an infringing party has the requisite knowledge to be liable for secondary acts of infringement (such as importation and sale). The case…
Sampling is a technique used in the music industry which utilises parts of pre-existing recordings in order to create a new music composition. Although sampling has been a common practice and a widely-used method in many modern music productions, its legality under EU law is still to be determined. From the perspective of European copyright…
Whether the online real estate brokerage Redfin exceeded its license to use Alexander Stross’s copyrighted property photographs raised a question of fact for the jury, a panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals determined, reversing the federal district court in Austin’s decision that Redfin’s license was a complete defense to Stross’s claim of copyright infringement….
Although a professional photographer plausibly alleged that he owned a valid copyright in a photo of basketball superstar Michael Jordan, and that sports apparel company Nike copied the photo to create its “Jumpman” logo that Nike uses in advertisements and on merchandise, the photographer failed to plausibly allege that Nike copied enough of the protected…
The Spanish court has recently given judgment in proceedings brought by various audiovisual producers belonging to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), against a number of telecommunications companies who provide Internet access. The proceedings were aimed at having the latter take measures to block Internet access to certain websites that were making protected audiovisual…
Decision of the German Bundesgerichtshof of September 21, 2017, file no. I ZR 11/16: “Vorschaubilder III” (“Thumbnails III”). In this decision, the Bundesgerichtshof (“BGH”) applies the latest CJEU case law on liability for linking, namely Svensson (C-466/12), GS Media (C-160/15), Filmspeler (C-527/15) and BREIN/Ziggo (C-610/15) to search engines and in particular to Google’s picture search….
An artist’s illustration of two dolphins crossing underwater was an idea that was found first in nature and was not protectable under copyright law, the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco has held. The court affirmed a district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of another artist who created a painting with a…
The Court of Appeal of Lisbon confirmed that it is mandatory to have a licence and to pay for performing broadcast works to clients via TV sets in hotel rooms as this constitutes communication of the works to the public. Case date: 16 May 2017 Case number: 197/14.2YHLSB.L1-7 Court: Court of Appeal of Lisbon A full summary of…
The Court of Appeal of Lisbon held that the violation of the right to publish a work post mortem, against the will of the author or of his/her heirs, is a serious and irreparable infringement of the author’s moral rights and provides sufficient justification to order an interim injunction. Case date: 2 May 2017 Case number: 348/16.2YHLSB.L1-1…
