A loophole in copyright protection? The 2009 directive on the legal protection of computer programs (the Software Directive) grants copyright protection to all forms of expression of computer programs. Its Article 4(1) mentions three exclusive rights. The first is the reproduction right, which covers not only permanent copies but also temporary copies loaded into the volatile…

Recently, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, in line with several decisions of the U.S. Copyright Office’s Review Board, found that human creativity is the sine qua non of copyrightability, refusing to register a work lacking human creative involvement or control. In this way, the U.S. jurisprudence embraces the distinction between…

Welcome to the third trimester of the 2023 round up of EU copyright law! In this edition, we update you on what has happened between July and September 2023 in EU copyright law. The autumn has started with full speed – the courts and the policy makes have been very active. This round up series…

In Greek mythology, the saga of Sisyphus personifies relentless and never-ending toil – condemned by the gods to an eternity of pushing a massive boulder up a steep hill, only to watch it roll back down again as he nears the summit. With 24 years of legal proceedings and a dozen court rulings behind them,…

With the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) restarting its activities after the vacation break, we look back to one of the late-summer judgement, standing out for its technical, yet impactful character. In Case C-426/21, the CJEU looked into the complicated relationship between copyright law and online television services. The focus of the case…

Welcome to the second trimester of the 2023 round up of EU copyright law! In this series, every three months we update you on what has happened in EU copyright law. This includes Court of Justice (CJEU) and General Court judgments, Advocate Generals’ (AG) opinions, and important policy developments. You can read the previous round-ups…

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…