On Valentine’s Day, the Higher Regional Court of Vienna (docket no 4 R 119/18a) issued a judgment on a complaint by the Austrian broadcasting company Puls 4 against YouTube, predating the much-discussed Article 17 (formerly known as Article 13) of the Copyright Directive. The petition requested aimed to prevent YouTube from making available videos containing…

Introduction This post briefly discusses the new Counterfeit & Piracy Watch List published by the European Commission on 7 December 2018 (Watch List). The Watch List represents the EU Commission’s most recent effort to protect the intellectual property rights (IPRs) of European rights holders. Through a “follow the money” enforcement strategy, the Watch List targets…

While avid readers of IP blogs have recently learned about UK courts issuing flexible and powerful live blocking orders against illegal streaming websites (here), Italian courts imposing dynamic blocking orders elegantly skirting the outer limits of the general monitoring prohibition (here), and German courts handing down blocking injunctions based on something as German-sounding as Störerhaftung,…

Just a few days before Christmas, Advocate General Hogan published his opinion that the German related right (neighbouring right) in favour of press publishers is unenforceable for formal reasons. In his view, it should have been notified to the European Commission before the law was passed in Germany. The final word is now with the…

As we enter a new year, we would like to take this opportunity to pass on our best wishes for 2019 to all of our readers, as well as reflect on developments in copyright over the past year.  Last year was a busy one in the copyright world, with a number of landmark CJEU decisions,…

Introduction AGCOM is the Italian independent and convergent regulatory authority, established in 1997 by Law no. 249/1997 as the national media regulatory body. On 16th October 2018, AGCOM approved the deliberation no. 490/18/CONS (available here) which introduces some modifications and integrations to the Regulation on copyright enforcement in electronic communications networks (“AGCOM Regulation” or simply…

Website blocking injunction cases are complicated in Sweden because the Copyright Act requires contributory liability of the ISP, or in the case of interim injunctions – probable cause, for an injunction to be issued. While the reduced evidentiary burden for interim injunctions does not completely absolve a court from scrutinising the evidence, the legal context…

Josef K. was minding his own business when one morning, even though he knew he had done nothing wrong, he was arrested. This was the beginning of his trial. In his masterpiece entitled The Trial, Franz Kafka tells, among many things, the story of a man trying to interact with a preposterous system of justice….

The new Colombian Copyright Act bill brings different and important modifications. The following points explain the most significant changes: Copyright Duration has Increased for Legal Persons: The copyright and neighboring rights duration for legal persons has increased from 50 to 70 years. The 70-year term is counted from the year following the date of publication,…

1. Introduction In September 2016, the European Commission published its proposal for a new Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, including its controversial draft Article 13. The main driver behind this provision is what has become known as the ‘value gap’, i.e. the alleged mismatch between the value that online sharing platforms extract…