European Union

CDSM Directive, Digital Single Market, European Union, Exceptions and Limitations, Reproduction (right of), Text and Data Mining (TDM)

(Washington College of Law), (Luiss Guido Carli University), and (Institute for Information Law (IViR))/ /Leave a comment

Last year, before the onset of a global pandemic highlighted the critical and urgent need for technology-enabled scientific research, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) launched an inquiry into issues at the intersection of intellectual property (IP) and artificial intelligence (AI). We and other members of the Global Expert Network on Copyright User Rights contributed…

CDSM Directive, Digital Single Market, European Union, France, Legislative process, Press Publishers ’ Right, Remuneration (equitable)

(REALEX)/ /Leave a comment

Overview After fierce lobbying, European press publishers, backed by the French government, obtained the much criticized press publishers’ right (see e.g. here; here; and here) in Article 15 of Directive (EU) 2019/790 on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market (CDSM Directive). The objective of this new right is to allow the media…

CDSM Directive, Digital Single Market, European Union, Germany

(GFF (Society for Civil Rights))/ /Leave a comment

A year after the adoption of Directive 2019/790 on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market, many questions about its compatibility with fundamental rights remain unanswered. Germany, the epicenter of public protests against the directive’s most controversial provisions, is also the origin of frequent fundamental rights-related requests for preliminary rulings on EU copyright…

Belgium, CJEU, Communication (right of), Enforcement, European Union, Liability

(Institute for Information Law (IViR), University of Amsterdam)/ /1 Comment

On 6 August 2019 the Ondernemingsrechtbank Antwerpen (the court) submitted a request for a preliminary ruling to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on a dispute between Mircom, a company registered under Cypriot law, and Telenet, a Belgian internet service provider whose users presumably shared copyright protected works via Bit-torrent. This case…

Case Law, CDSM Directive, CJEU, Communication (right of), Digital Single Market, European Union, Liability, Netherlands

(Institute for Information Law (IViR), University of Amsterdam)/ /Leave a comment

On 12 June 2019, the High Court of the Netherlands referred four questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for a preliminary ruling. The questions concern an ongoing battle between Stichting Brein, a Dutch anti-piracy organisation representing movie and music industries, and NSE (News-Service.com), an online platform for Usenet services. Stichting…

CDSM Directive, Digital Single Market, European Union, Legislative process

(UCL Centre for Blockchain Technologies)/ /Leave a comment

Impartial observers of the 2018-19 debates around the new European Directive on Copyright must have been mystified. They were used to the acrimonious disputes between lobbies representing conflicting short-term economic interests. No surprise there. The shock came from elsewhere; from citizen reactions, community responses and societal questions. What if these reactions, responses and questions were…

Brexit, CDSM Directive, Digital Single Market, European Union, Legislative process, United Kingdom

(CREATe, University of Glasgow)/ /1 Comment

Here we have it. The first instance of regulatory divergence. The UK is leaving the European Union, and already the rules of the single market are starting to break. In response to a parliamentary question by Labour MP Jo Stevens, Intellectual Property Minister Chris Skidmore said on 21 January that the UK Government had no…

AG Opinion, Belgium, Case Law, CJEU, Design Rights, European Union, Infringement, Originality, Subject matter (copyrightable)

(The University of Nottingham)/ /Leave a comment

Part I of this post provided an overview of the facts of the case and the recent opinion of AG Campos Sanchez-Bordona. Overall, the opinion is a mixed result. It makes some good points but also some ill-judged ones, and these will be explored in more detail in this post. Let us start with the positive…

AG Opinion, Belgium, Case Law, CJEU, Design Rights, European Union, Infringement, Subject matter (copyrightable)

(The University of Nottingham)/ /Leave a comment

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 bike was once protected by a patent and, following its expiry, the defendant (Chedech/Get2Get) embarked on selling a similar bike in Belgium (the designs of the two bikes…

CDSM Directive, Digital Single Market, European Union, Exceptions and Limitations, Infringement, Legislative process, Liability

(iRights.info)/ /Leave a comment

Part I of this post discussed the current position of host providers and the changes that will be brought about by Article 17. Part II addresses the major problems in relation to Article 17 and how it should be implemented to try and minimize these. The host provider privilege as a safeguard for a diverse…