A provider that offers free unprotected Wi-Fi should not be held responsible when their users use the service to infringe copyright. This is according to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in the long-running German case of Tobias McFadden v Sony Music Entertainment Germany GmbH (C-484/14). The circumstances of the case were…
On March 23 the European Commission launched a public consultation on both the role of publishers in the copyright value chain and the ‘panorama exception’. The intent was to gather views on several issues: first, whether publishers of newspapers, magazines, books and scientific journals are facing problems in the digital environment as a result of…
Recently, the Commission published a draft of the Commission’s impact assessment “on the modernisation of EU copyright rules” and a draft for a new directive “on copyright in the Digital Single Market” were leaked. Yesterday, the Commission launched the long-awaited proposal for this directive, which includes an exception for reproductions made by research organisations to…
Earlier this year, the Commission launched a public consultation on the role of publishers in the copyright value chain. The consultation sought to gather views on a number of issues, namely the impact of granting an EU neighbouring right to publishers and whether the need for EU intervention is different in the press sector vis-à-vis…
In this case, brought by a Latvian collective management organisation (AKKA/LAA) against the Latvian Government, the European Court of Human Rights held as follows: 1. The protection of intellectual property rights, including the protection of copyright and the economic interests deriving from it, falls within the scope of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 of…
As well as bringing you a fun copyright quiz to keep you entertained over the rest of the summer, we’ve also prepared an overview of the top 3 most-read posts from each of our IP law blogs. Unsurprisingly, Brexit was the hot topic on all three blogs, but we also have a very interesting interview…
The prior express consent of the author is necessary to use a copyright work under EU law; the statutory presumption of collective management of copyright doesn’t comply with the need for express prior consent, even with an opt-out possibility and for a legitimate objective, Advocate General Wathelet said in his opinion on the pending request…
On 7 July 2016, the CJEU (Court of Justice of the European Union) handed down its decision in Tommy Hilfiger (case C-494/15). The case concerned the imposition of an injunction on Delta Center, a company that sublets sales areas in the “Prague Market Halls” (Pražská tržnice) to traders, after it was found that counterfeit goods…
Since the information transmitted over the internet is often embodied in copyright works, some right owners consequently claim the right to control or at least to participate in the corresponding revenues. They direct their claims to intermediaries at different layers of the network or directly to users. Intermediaries often invoke legal defences such as the…
Good news for copyright aficionados who (like me) rather read their copyright law from hard copies than from screens. After a ten-year wait the second edition of Concise European Copyright Law (a.k.a. “Concise Copyright”) was finally published earlier this year. If you liked the ‘little blue book’ that first came out in 2006, you will…
