In this case the court took the position that the non-transfer of economic copyright in a draft building plan did not constitute a breach of the contract of services for designing a construction project if this condition had not been explicitly agreed between the parties. It followed that the transfer of economic copyright must be…
Good news for copyright aficionados who (like me) rather read their copyright law from hard copies than from screens. After a ten-year wait the second edition of Concise European Copyright Law (a.k.a. “Concise Copyright”) was finally published earlier this year. If you liked the ‘little blue book’ that first came out in 2006, you will…
On June 16, Advocate General (AG) Spuznar delivered his opinion in Case C‑174/15 Vereniging Openbare Bibliotheken v Stichting Leenrecht. The case emerged from a dispute between VOB, the association of Dutch public libraries, and a foundation entrusted with collecting the remuneration for lending which is due to authors. In VOB’s view, the lending of electronic…
In response to a reference from the Spanish Supreme Court, the CJEU held that Article 5(2)(b) of Directive 2001/29/EC must be interpreted as precluding a scheme for fair compensation for private copying like the Spanish system, which is financed from the General State Budget in such a way that it is not possible to ensure that…
The Supreme court of Bulgaria held that the term “unless agreed otherwise” in Art. 42 (2) of the Law on Copyright and Related Rights should be interpreted as meaning that the parties to an agreement commissioning the creation of a work can agree either in the commissioning agreement or in another agreement on specific terms…
The CJEU considered that where the operator of a rehabilitation centre installs television sets at its premises, to which it transmits a broadcast signal thereby enabling patients to view television programmes, and this affects the copyright and related rights of a wide range of interested parties, it must be determined whether such a situation constitutes…
In a judgment of 17 March 2016, the Cour de cassation, the French Supreme Court, ruled that the judicial courts are required to assess and award the remuneration for private copying in situations where one of the decisions of the Commission in charge of setting the fair compensation has been annulled. A full summary of…
In this decision, the CJEU tackled an international jurisdiction issue, since what was essentially under debate in the main proceedings was the applicability of Article 5(3) of Regulation 44/2001 on jurisdiction in civil and commercial matters, which enables, in matters relating to tort, delict or quasi-delict, persons domiciled in one Member State to be sued…
The French Supreme Court confirmed that a writ of summons for infringement of intellectual property rights must determine and specify the elements for which protection is sought, as well as the allegedly infringing acts. A writ of summons, such as that in the case at hand, which does not sufficiently describe or identify the work…
The court held that the defendant did not infringe the claimant’s copyright or database rights beyond the infringements already admitted, as none of the defendant’s customers apart from one had access to the claimant’s software. A full summary of this case has been published on Kluwer IP Law
