As the environmental crisis escalates due to overproduction and overconsumption, there is an increasing recognition of the urgent need for environmental consciousness and a shift towards a sustainable, circular economy (see, in the intellectual property context, Pihlajarinne & Ballardini (2020), Senftleben (2023), Calboli (2024)). Upcycling, notably, which involves reworking old items or their parts into…
On 21 March 2024, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued its ruling in case C-10/22 Liberi Autori ed Editori (LEA) v. Jamendo SA. The decision confirms that Independent Management Entities (“IMEs”) can provide their copyright management services in the European Union (EU) alongside Collective Management Organizations (“CMOs”). National legislation in one…
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) is about to write yet another chapter in the never-ending, or so it seems, ‘Metall auf Metall’ saga. The facts of the case are all too familiar by now: in 2004, German band Kraftwerk took hip hop producer Moses Pelham to court for copyright infringement after…
For more than seven decades, international law has consistently led countries to embrace culture as a global and cross-border value for humanity. The human right to cultural participation has become a pillar of protecting and empowering individuals and communities. At the EU level, the competence to legislate on cultural matters is mostly left to the…
For 25 years, a case has been circling the German Courts like a roller coaster without a final decision. To date, the Federal Court (hereinafter “BGH”) alone has ruled on the matter five times. Now, it is in the hands of the Court of Justice of the European Union (hereinafter “CJEU”)– for the second time….
Welcome to the first trimester of the 2024 roundup of EU copyright law (though with a slight delay)! In this edition, we update you on what has happened between January and March 2024 in EU copyright law. Interestingly enough, in this issue you will find quite a bit of UK policy reports. As our regular…
The sweeping evolution of generative AI models is rapidly reshaping the legal landscape of copyright. In the wake of the landmark cases of Authors Guild, Inc v HathiTrust and Authors Guild, Inc v Google, Inc – or the Google Books case –, the fair use doctrine has accommodated a core principle of non-expressive use, referring…
Large language models’ (LLMs) greatest strength may also be their greatest weakness: their learning is so advanced that sometimes, just like humans, they memorise. This is not surprising, of course, because computers are really good at mainly two things: storing and analysing data. There is now empirical evidence that deep learning models are prone to…
Part I of this annual post reporting on the copyright case law of the German Bundesgerichtshof covered decisions in the areas of copyright protection and exploitation rights, as well as exceptions and limitations. Part II will focus on copyright contract law and claims under copyright law. IV. Copyright contract law (Sections 31 et seqq….
The purpose of copyright, at its very basic level, finds its normative implementation in the interplay between access to protected works and the protection of the moral and material interest of creators (see Geiger, 2017). The social contract of copyright, which main purpose is to realize a broader collective concern, the access of citizens to…
