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.
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…
Welcome to the fourth (and last) trimester of the 2022 round up of EU copyright law (even though slightly overdue)! While in the last three months of 2022 the CJEU was relatively quiet, the various EU policymakers have been very productive. In this series, we update readers every three months on developments in EU copyright…
Time and again, authors use their copyright to prevent press publications they do not like. Such use of copyright to suppress press reporting interferes with the fundamental right of communication, which not only serves individual expression but also safeguards the existence of a democratic society. In light of fundamental rights, copyright law cannot allow the…
In April 2021, the Austrian Supreme Court referred two questions of principle to the CJEU concerning the activity of a satellite TV package provider (Austrian Supreme Court, 4Ob195/20k). On 22 September 2022, the Advocate General provided his opinion on the case. The questions referred can be summarised as follows: Is Article 1(2)(b) of the Satellite…
The thorny issue of internet intermediary liability seems to continue preoccupying EU policymakers. While internet intermediaries act as gatekeepers of content that is transmitted online, their services seem to attract a high number of copyright infringements. Effective and prompt solutions to combat online piracy are more than urgent. This blogpost provides a critical reflection on…
The last couple of years has seen the emergence of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) as an important medium for the creation, sale and collection of art, with numerous instances of big money purchases of NFTs. NFTs began as a sub-culture of sorts for artists to sell work in a digitised format, but they are now increasingly…
On March 10th, 2022, the Advocate General (AG) Pitruzzella delivered his Opinion on the case RTL Television GmbH v Grupo Pestana S.G.P.S., S.A., et al (C-716/20). The case is an ideal example of the intricacy of the EU copyright law edifice regarding the right of communication to the public, which appears as a patchwork of…
In the recent case of Estonian Performers Union (EEL) v vs. MTÜ Urban Style, the Estonian Supreme Court examined the circumstances that should be taken into account in determining the amount of the equitable remuneration that phonogram producers and performers are entitled to claim if a phonogram published for commercial purposes or a reproduction thereof…
As a matter of principle, the exercise of the exclusive rights under copyright is the author’s individual prerogative: it is the author who decides whether they wish to authorize the reproduction or communication to the public of their works (the same goes for the performer, the producers, the broadcaster or the news publisher). Exceptionally, copyright…
Part 1 of this post (originally published in “Auteurs & Media”) summarising case law of the German Bundesgerichtshof from 2015 to 2019 is available here, and parts 3 and 4 will be published on the blog over the coming days. III. Exploitation rights (Sections 15-24 UrhG) Germany has regulated exploitation rights, as…
