Communication (right of)

The right of communication to the public is set out in Article 3(1) of Directive 2001/29/EC (the Copyright Directive or Infosoc Directive), which requires that EU member states must provide authors with the exclusive right to authorise or prohibit any communication to the public of their works by wire or wireless means, including the making available to the public of their works in such a way that members of the public may access them from a place and at a time individually chosen by them.

Belgium, Case Law, Collective management, Communication (right of), Digital Single Market, Making available (right of)

(CRIDS)/ /Leave a comment

On the 13th March 2015, the President of the Brussels French speaking Court of First Instance pronounced a judgment to the detriment of Sabam, an important collective management organisation in Belgium. In 2011 Sabam decided to claim a fee from Internet access providers in exchange for a licence which allows these providers to communicate copyright…

Case Law, CJEU, Communication (right of), Digital Single Market, European Union, Infringement, Making available (right of)

(Bristows LLP)/ /Leave a comment

On 26 March, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) handed down Case C-279/13 C More Entertainment, the latest decision regarding the right of communication to the public in the context of websites providing links to content. In this particular case, C More provided live broadcasts of ice hockey matches on the Internet for payment of…

Case Law, Communication (right of), Czech Republic, Enforcement, Infringement

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

In a case concerning the use of a radio set in a small bike shop, the Constitutional Court ruled that in order to assess whether a user is making a communication to the public, the situation of the specific user and of all the persons to whom he communicates the protected works must be assessed. A…

Communication (right of), European Union, Infringement, Reproduction (right of), Software

(Crowell & Moring LLP and UCLouvain - Saint Louis Bruxelles)/ /Leave a comment

The book “The Variable Scope of the Exclusive Economic Rights in Copyright” recently published in Kluwer’s Information Law Series is the result of my doctoral research (which led to a doctoral dissertation defended at Vrije Universiteit Brussel in 2011).  This article provides an overview of the research described in the book, followed by a more…

Case Law, Collective management, Communication (right of), European Union, Jurisdiction, Legislative process

(Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition)/ /Leave a comment

“The answers from Luxembourg were much awaited not only due to the questions being interesting as such, but also because academia, the European Commission and the CJEU do not see eye to eye on these currently highly debated issues.” In response to questions lodged by a Czech court (Krajský soud v Plzni) in a preliminary…

Case Law, Communication (right of), Digital Single Market, Infringement, Making available (right of)

(Institute of Intellectual Property Law, Jagiellonian University Kraków)/ /Leave a comment

The Court of Justice delivered its highly anticipated decision on linking. A breath of relief is allowed: linking seems to be legal. But when one looks a little closer, disturbing things begin to emerge. First things first. The decision in Case C‑466/12, resulting from a request for a preliminary ruling from a Swedish court (Nils…

Case Law, Communication (right of), Digital Single Market, Infringement, Jurisdiction, Netherlands

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

“In that case, the publication of an hyperlink is, in principle, not an autonomous communication to the public” It is a common fact that the sex-industry, along with the arms industry,  is a driving force behind many new developments. Porn is a major force on the internet and it also shouldn’t come as a surprise…

Case Law, Communication (right of), Czech Republic, Liability

(London School of Economics)/ /1 Comment

In February this year, the Czech Supreme Court ruled that a mere posting of an embedded link that links to copyright-protected material, must be regarded as a communication to the public and therewith as a direct copyright infringement. The Court was either unaware of pending cases in Luxembourg, or too impatient to wait for the…

Communication (right of), Database right, Legislative process, Liability, Switzerland

(Lenz & Staehellin, Geneva )/ /Leave a comment

“The report reflects the general tendency of Swiss legislative authorities to avoid legislative process and to favor a flexible approach of existing regulations.” The Swiss Federal Council reported a few weeks ago, in response to a postulate referred by the National Council in 2011 related to the legal situation of social media, that Social networks…

Communication (right of), Infringement, Legislative process, Poland

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

How the Polish broadcasting law on must-carry and must-offer makes broadcasters choose whether to infringe copyright and licensing contracts or the Polish Broadcasting Act. This post is about a rare mixture of folly and incompetence that is fortunately unlikely to leave any durable traces on the face of copyright law in Europe. However, the utter…