Case arises out of dispute over the estate of noted evangelical minister Dr. Lester Sumrall. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago has affirmed the dismissal of claims for copyright ownership brought by a trust asserting the rights of a son of the late evangelical pastor Dr. Lester Sumrall, finding those claims were barred…
In November 2023, the CJEU cast light on the right to fair compensation under the private copying exception harmonised by Article 5(2)(b) InfoSoc Directive and the thorny issue of whether broadcasters are entitled to it. This post considers this judgment. The big question is whether there’s anything more to this seemingly mechanical judgment from the…
How did we get here? Case C-159/23 Sony Computer Entertainment Europe revolves around the scope of protection of computer programs under the 2009 Software Directive. The Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) will respond to two preliminary questions posed by the German Supreme Court. The detailed background of the case was discussed in a…
Welcome to the second trimester of the 2024 roundup of EU copyright law right in time before the (hopefully) quiet summer period starts. In this edition, we update you on what has happened between March and June 2024 in EU copyright law. As our regular readers know, this roundup series includes Court of Justice (CJEU)…
The testimony was properly excluded—and without it, the software company could not prevail on its copyright claims. A Detroit federal court correctly found that a software designer moved too late to introduce expert testimony supporting the copyrightability of its source code, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has held. The court, in…
In February 2024, the Court of Appeal in New Zealand (the Court) issued a judgment on a long-running matter between a separating couple looking to sort out their property. The appellant, Ms Alalääkkölä, was an artist who had created copyrighted works throughout her career. Her former spouse, Mr Palmer, argued that the copyright in those…
On 21 March 2024, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued its ruling in case C-10/22 Liberi Autori ed Editori (LEA) v. Jamendo SA. The decision confirms that Independent Management Entities (“IMEs”) can provide their copyright management services in the European Union (EU) alongside Collective Management Organizations (“CMOs”). National legislation in one…
In July 2023, the Court of Appeal in Wright & Ors v BTC Core & Ors [2023] EWCA Civ 868. overturned the High Court decision in which Mr Justice Mellor found that the Bitcoin File Format (the “BFF”) was not a protectable work in a copyright sense as it did not satisfy the fixation requirement…
The Austrian Supreme Court (hereinafter: “ASC”) ruled on 19th of December 2023 (4 Ob 112/23h) in a case concerning the 2019 film “Yesterday”. The Plaintiff alleged that the film infringed its copyright in a short screenplay idea published in 2011. The First Defendant distributes the film “Yesterday” to Austrian cinemas. The Second Defendant is responsible…
Tackling the blurred lines between counterfeiting and ingenuity in the art world is certainly not an easy endeavor. Indeed, in a world where “nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed“, it is a rather daunting exercise for any court to draw the line between inspiration and imitation in copyrighted works, let alone in…
