In this post, I would like to come back to an interesting decision of the Belgian Cour de Cassation of 7 October 2010, which confirmed that a cease and desist action could be successfully sought against a copyright licensee. As usual, the Supreme Court’s decision is quite concise and does not extensively detail the facts….
In a recently announced Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with music and film industry associations, U.S. Internet service providers (ISPs) have agreed to take voluntary action against online piracy. In essence, the MoU establishes a multi-stage model (“graduated response”) that begins with email alerts, and which may end up with bandwidth reductions or limitations in web…
UK: ITV Broadcasting Ltd v TV Catchup Ltd High Court of England and Wales (Patents Court), 18 July 2011 Live-streaming: In a case on internet live-streaming retransmission of TV broadcasts and films, the High Court ruled that the introduction in the UK Copyright Act of a general right of communication to the public with respect…
On July 6, 2011 the Italian Communications Authority (AGCOM) approved the “Draft regulation regarding copyright protection on the electronic communications networks”, currently subject to a 60-day public consultation. As mentioned in my previous posts, AGCOM’s proposal of new rules for the protection of copyright in Internet and audiovisual media services was heavily criticized because of…
UK: Future Publishing Ltd v. Edge Interactive Media Inc., High Court Chancery Division, 13 June 2011. Copyright in logo: US companies involved in the business of computer games had infringed copyright in the logo of a computer gaming magazine (“EDGE”), by using it on letterhead, website and games. The Court found the logo sufficiently original…
UK: Lucasfilm Ltd & Ors v Ainsworth & Anor, Supreme Court, 27 july 2011. Helmets and harmours created for the characters of the Imperial Stormtrooper in the film Star Wars are not “sculptures”, and therefore are not copyrightable subject matter within the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Nevertheless, a claim for infringement of a…
A Committe set up by the Danish Government has recently proposed concrete initiatives to strengthen the enforcement of copyright on the Internet. The Committee identified four primary focus areas: enforcement of copyright on the Internet, legal business models, increased consumer awareness and sending information letters. In addition, the Committe rejects so-called compensation models according to…
As reported by the Dutch commentator Lucie Guibault in her recent Blogpost the Dutch government (in the person of the secretary of state, Fred Teeven) plans to restrict the private copying limitation. Downloads from “obviously illegal sources” shall be declared unlawful. In Germany such a rule exists already, implemented in the course of the first…
DENMARK – An end user of the Direct Connect file sharing network was found liable for copyright infringements. However, the Supreme Court did not agree with the right holders (respondents) that the extent of the infringements was sufficiently documented and overturned the evidence (a list of files) provided by right holders. Also, the Supreme Court…
On 3 May 2011, the Paris Court of Appeal dismissed the claims of copyright infringement brought by the Syndicat National de l’Edition Phonographique (SNEP- trade association of the French recording industry) against Google. Since 2008, the search engine is proposing a service, Google Suggest, which guesses and suggests a list of keywords in real time…
