What is and what is not a copyright work is a question even copyright lawyers find difficult to answer when confronted with subject matter on the verge of the required standard of originality. Polish copyright law has quite a long tradition of setting the threshold rather low, which may encourage frivolous lawsuits forcing courts to…
In case C 393/09, the ECJ decided that a GUI is not a form of expression of a computer program and cannot therefore be protected by copyright as a computer program under Directive 91/250/EEC. Indeed, that directive protects the forms of expression of a computer program and the preparatory design work capable of leading, respectively,…
The variation of the Austrian National Anthem by setting it to a modernised “rock-version” of the classic tune and by changing the line “You are home to great sons” to “You are home to great sons and daughters” for use in an information campaign by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture, does…
According to the Austrian Supreme Court, the EU Copyright Directive 2001/29/EC harmonises the right of communication to the public, assuming a consistent European term of publicity. The right of communication to the public is characterised by an element of distance. Therefore, the distribution by a hotel of a broadcast via TV to the TV-sets situated…
The defendant, the so-called “cooperative of CD co-owners”, abuses the ‘personal use’ exeption under Article 30 of Copyright, together with the three-step-test under Article 29(1) of Copyright Act, while he operates as a covert form of lending company (see previously reported cases concerning cooperatives of CD co-owners, in Kluwer database). The court, as in previous…
The issue of protection of the neighbouring rights of Greek actors in Cyprus has been examined recently by the District Court of Nicosia. The case concerned the broadcasting of Greek movies by a Cypriot broadcasting organization. The collecting society managing the performers rights in Cyprus demanded equitable remuneration for the broadcasting of films on the…
Paintings that were abandoned and left in a loft were not subject to free utilization. The copyright in the paintings was thus not exhausted. A summary of this case will be posted on http://www.KluwerIPCases.com
Bankruptcy brings always its share of bad surprises, and it usually gets dodgier when intellectual property is involved… In this post, we propose a review of a decision of the Belgian Supreme Court illustrating this observation in the software development sector. We will start with the legal provisions applied by the Court and its decision…
The football leagues in Europe seem to be on a losing streak in Luxembourg. On February 17 the European Court of Justice pronounced that Member States may reserve television coverage of FIFA World Cup events to free-to-air public broadcasters, on the basis of nationally drawn-up lists of ‘events of major importance’, as defined in the…
A Belgian band uploaded some songs on a freely accessible website under a non-commercial & no derivative Creative Commons licence. A Belgian theatre used one of the songs to create an advertisement for the next theatrical season, which was broadcasted on several national radios channels. The Court found that the theatre did not respect the…
