Summary On 30 April 2020, the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) delivered its ruling in the ‘Metall auf Metall’ saga. It decided that the appeals court had erred in finding that reproduction of a two-second sample infringed the reproduction right of a phonogram producer before the coming into force of Directive 2001/29/EC (InfoSoc Directive)….
The new Directive for Copyright in the Digital Single Market (“DSM Directive”) was a controversial piece of legislation. Notably, its article 17 has raised many concerns for its impact on fundamental rights, and particularly freedom of expression. In contrast to the mostly declarative or procedural guarantees included in the directive, I argue that an effective…
Part 1 of this post illustrated the criteria differentiating Article 17 of the EU Directive on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market (“DSMCD”) from Article 3 InfoSoc Directive and came to the conclusion that the relationship between the two provisions cannot be explained by a sui generis right, which follows its own…
Part 2 of this publication will be published on the Kluwer Copyright Blog shortly. “… [T]his Directive shall leave intact and shall in no way affect existing rules laid down in the directives currently in force in this area, in particular Directives … 2001/29/EC.”. Art. 1(2) of the EU Directive on copyright and related rights…
The first part of this post provided an introduction to the German implementation proposal for Article 17 DSM Directive (the Copyright Service Provider Act), and a discussion of the proposed rules on user rights and pre-flagging. This Part 2 continues with an analysis of the newly proposed exceptions and limitations, the German efforts to achieve…
Germany was the main battleground over last year’s adoption of the EU Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (DSM Directive). After 200,000 people took to the streets against impending restrictions of their freedom of communication, the German government promised to avoid the use of upload filters in its national implementation. One of the…
The European Copyright Society (ECS) has issued a series of insightful Comments on the implementation of the CDSM Directive’s provisions, which aim to serve as guidelines for policy options for the implementation of the Directive in the Member States. Part I of this post outlined the Comments on the implementation of Articles 8 and 12,…
Almost a year has passed since the adoption of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (CDSM) Directive on the 6th of July 2019. This marked the end of a controversial legislative process at EU level, but also the beginning of a highly demanding process of national implementation. While the Directive has to…
This case concerned the famous Brompton bicycle which can be folded to carry away after use (Case C‑833/18, SI, Brompton Bicycle Ltd. v. Chedech / Get2Get); the author commented on the Advocate General’s opinion here and here. The bike was once protected by a patent and, following its expiry, the defendant (Get2Get) started selling a…
Last Tuesday, Hungary somewhat unexpectedly became the second EU member state to implement part of the Copyright in the Digital Single Market (CDSM) Directive into national law, after France, which implemented Article 15 (the new press publishers’ right) back in October last year. Hungary has now passed a law implementing Article 5 of the DSM…
