The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) is an institution of the European Union (EU). It is responsible, inter alia, for ensuring that EU law is interpreted and applied in a consistent way in all EU countries. If a national court is in doubt about the interpretation or validity of an EU law, it can ask the Court for clarification. The same mechanism can be used to determine whether a national law or practice is compatible with EU law. The CJEU also resolves legal disputes between national governments and EU institutions, and can take action against EU institutions on behalf of individuals, companies or organisations.
On 20 April 2023 in the joined cases Blue Air ( C-775/21) and SNTFC (C-826/21) the CJEU pronounced once again on the infringement of the right of communication to the public, making a further contribution to the already rich case law in this field. This time the questions related to the existence (or not) of…
Background On 8 September 2022, the Brussels court of appeal delivered a long-awaited judgment in a case between the collective management organisation “Belgian Association of Authors, Composers and Publishers” (“SABAM”) and a wide array of music festival organisers in Belgium, the overarching Federation of Music Festivals in Flanders (“FMFF”) and British direct licensing company Pace…
Welcome to the first trimester of the 2023 round up of EU copyright law! In this edition, we report on an AG Opinion that came out late in 2022 and update you on what has happened in the first trimester of 2023 in EU copyright law. This includes Court of Justice (CJEU) and General Court…
This post is based in part on the Position Statement of the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition of 23 January 2023 on the ‘Design Package’, but expresses the authors’ own personal views. On 28 November 2022, the EU Commission published proposals for amendment of the Design Regulation and for recast of…
Despite the increasing use of streaming services, where media content is not stored on local devices, but merely accessed online, the private copying exception (Art 5(2)(b) InfoSoc Directive) remains at the center of European jurisprudence. In the Austro-Mechana v. Strato case, the Austrian courts have to decide whether the remuneration for private copying must also be…
The European Commission has referred six Member States (Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, Latvia, Poland and Portugal) to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for failure to notify complete transposition measures on copyright in the Digital Single Market (Directive (EU) 2019/790) (CDSM Directive). This follows its decision last year to send reasoned opinions to 13…
Grand Production d.o.o. v GO4YU GmbH (Case C‑423/21) The facts of the case are representative of the grey areas of the application of copyright territoriality in the digital era. The applicant, Grand Production d.o.o., is a Serbian company which produces television programs that are broadcast in Serbia by a TV channel, Prva Srpska Televizija. Another…
1. Introduction Last week, a preliminary hearing took place before the European Court of Justice (CJEU), in a case dealing with the implementation of the Collective Rights Management (CRM) Directive (2014/26/EU) in Italy. The AG Opinion is expected on 11th May. The Civil Court of Rome submitted a preliminary ruling request (No. 10/2022), in the…
The decisions of the BGH (German Federal Court of Justice) in “YouTube II”, “uploaded II” and “uploaded III” have changed things, at least for hosting providers, in one key aspect: hosting providers can now be (indirectly) liable for the copyright infringements committed by their users, if those hosting providers violate duties of care. This post…
Part I of this post discussed the changes to copyright contract law and the new text and data mining exemption provisions that formed part of the 2021 copyright law reform. Part 2 explores further exemptions for users of works, new aspects of the right of communication to the public and the press publishers’ right. It…
