A Pasadena, California, district court ruling that FilmOn X, LLC, was a “cable system” and thus eligible for compulsory licenses under the Copyright Act has been reversed by the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco. In a ruling in favor of broadcasters such as Fox Television Stations, Inc., the court held that, based on…
1. Introduction As reported previously on the Kluwer Copyright Blog, on 22 September 2016 the Court of Justice of the European Union (‘CJEU’ or ‘Court’) ruled on Case C-110/15 (Microsoft Mobile Sales International and others Vs MIBACT and SIAE) regarding the private copying exception in Article 5.2 b of Directive 2001/29/EC (the ‘InfoSoc Directive’). The…
The Estonian court recently examined the conditions under which the public performance of works at a school concert falls within the free use exception. The Estonian Authors’ Society (an authors’ collecting society) filed a claim against the City of Tartu (through the City Government of Tartu), which administers Miina Härma Gymnasium and had organised a…
On 8 February Advocate General Szpunar handed down his Opinion on Stichting Brein v Ziggo. The case is significant, as it represents the first time that the liability of an internet intermediary for copyright infringement will be considered by the CJEU. To date, all decisions handed down by that court on intermediary liability have instead…
The California Supreme Court has been asked by the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco to provide guidance on the question of whether California statutory or common law grants owners of pre-1972 sound recordings an exclusive right of public performance. This guidance is key to a lawsuit brought by Flo & Eddie, Inc.—owner of…
In mid-February, the Russian Intellectual Property Court issued an interesting decision, in which it indicated when filmmakers have to obtain a copyright owner’s consent for use of a movie prop. Under the auspices of the case, Pan Press Publisher filed a lawsuit against Ren-TV TV Channel and AN-film Production Company claiming that its book cover…
A full report of this case has been published on Kluwer IP Law. The Supreme Court held that in order to decide whether there has been an infringement of the personality rights of an architect by modifications to his work, it is necessary to establish the degree of intensity of relationship between the architect and…
The CJEU has handed down a decision which is likely to land a fatal blow to the online streaming service TVCatchUp in their long running saga with free-to-air broadcasters. Background As we reported back in 2015, this reference to the CJEU by the UK Court of Appeal followed an appeal by the claimant broadcasters against…
The right of communication to the public has proved to be one of the most intriguing concepts of EU copyright law. The CJEU has had to decide on its scope of application in a variety of cases both in the analogue (See the seminal SGAE case C-306/05) and in the digital world (See: Svensson case…
A full report of this case has been published on Kluwer IP Law. The French Supreme Court upheld a judgment of the Court of Appeal of Paris that found an individual guilty of reproducing sculptures of Rodin, stating that the infringement of rights in a work that has fallen into the public domain consists of…
