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.
The European Court of Justice (CJEU) ruling in joined cases C-682/18 (YouTube) and C-683/18 (Cyando), concerning platform liability for copyright-infringing user uploads under Art. 3 (1) InfoSoc Directive, has been eagerly awaited for a long time. Such a long time – almost a year has passed since the Advocate General opinion (see here) – that…
On 3 June 2021, the CJEU handed down its judgment in CV-Online Latvia v Melons (with Ilešič as a reporting judge), a case involving Melons’ infringement of CV-Online Latvia’s database of job advertisements arguably protected by the sui generis right. The facts of the case are expertly described by Tatiana Synodinou in her comment on the…
In May 2019 right after the adoption of the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive, the Polish Government initiated a legal challenge before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) requesting the annulment of (parts of) Article 17. The Polish challenge claims that the application of the filtering obligations contained in Article…
In this new series we will be updating readers every three months on developments in EU copyright law. This will include Court of Justice (CJEU) and General Court judgments, Advocate Generals’ (AG) opinions, and important policy developments. The end of 2020 Since this is the first issue of our round up, we have also…
On March 9th, 2021 the CJEU delivered its eagerly awaited decision on the VG Kunst case (C‑392/19). The facts of the case are interesting, since the question of the lawfulness of frame linking and of inline linking was not directly raised. Instead, it appears indirectly in the context of the assessment of licence terms requiring…
Our daily life is studded with hints unveiling how the Internet is becoming a society within our society. From the terms and conditions we subscribe to in order to use it, to consolidated practices in the online world, the Internet mostly functions according to its own rules, which either abide by or clash with legal…
On 14 January 2021, Advocate General (AG) Szpunar delivered his Opinion in Case C‑762/19, SIA ‘CV-Online Latvia’ v SIA ‘Melons’, a further case relating to the database sui generis right. The application of the sui generis right to the activity of search engines was the main question raised in this case. Specifically, a specialist search…
The Directive on Copyright in a Digital Single Market (CDSM Directive, see here and here for an overview) is due to be implemented by the Member States of the European Union by 7 June 2021. The 27 Member States have struggled with transposing the CDSM Directive and have so far produced various transposition drafts, many of…
Having established in part 1 of this blog post that Article 17 will place significant economic burdens on platforms large and small, and that those burdens create incentives for platforms to further impact the freedom of expression and information of users, we go on to examine in part 2 whether those burdens constitute a restriction…
The risk of mandatory upload filters for freedom of expression and information online has been at the core of criticisms of Article 17 of the EU Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (DSM Directive). This risk is evident from numerous examples of restrictions on legitimate speech resulting from the voluntary use of such…
