Case Law

Case Law, Collective management, Exceptions and Limitations, Legislative process, Remuneration (equitable), Reproduction (right of), Spain

(European Audiovisual Observatory )/ /Leave a comment

As mentioned in a previous post, on 22 March 2011 the Spanish Audiencia Nacional (High Court) annulled for formal reasons the Spanish ordinance that determines which digital reproduction equipment and media are subject to the private copying levies. The ordinance had been challenged before the Spanish courts by the Asociación de Internautas (an Internet users’…

Case Law, Infringement, Originality, Poland, Subject matter (copyrightable)

(Institute of Intellectual Property Law, Jagiellonian University Kraków)/ /1 Comment

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…

Case Law, Communication (right of), European Union, Subject matter (copyrightable)

(Marx, Van Ranst, Vermeersch & Partners)/ /4 Comments

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,…

Austria, Case Law, Infringement, Moral rights, Transfer (of right)

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Kluwer Copyright Cases

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…

Austria, Case Law, Communication (right of), Neighbouring rights

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Kluwer Copyright Cases

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…

Case Law, Collective management, Czech Republic, Infringement, Liability, Neighbouring rights

(Advokátní kancelář Kříž a partneři s.r.o. )/ /Leave a comment

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…

Case Law, Collective management, Jurisdiction, Neighbouring rights

(University of Cyprus)/ /Leave a comment

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…

Authorship, Case Law, Ownership, Transfer (of right)

(Marx, Van Ranst, Vermeersch & Partners)/ /Leave a comment

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…

Case Law, Communication (right of), European Union, Exhaustion

(Institute for Information Law (IViR))/ /Leave a comment

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…