Can an auction house transfer the responsibility of paying the resale right royalty from the seller to the buyer? Directive 2001/84/EC created a resale right (‘droit de suite’) in the EU for the benefit of the author of an original work of art. This resale right is ‘defined as an inalienable right, which cannot be…
This blog post discusses the recent Opinion by Advocate General Pedro Cruz Villalón in Case C-435/12 – ACI Adam and Others, delivered on 9 January 2014 (not available in English). In this case, Advocate General Villalón considered whether reproductions from unlawful sources fall within the private copying exception of art. 5(2)(b) of Directive 2001/29/EC (Copyright…
“In other words, the initial communication by the copyright holder already encompassed the potential public that subsequently accessed the content via the links” The long-awaited judgment of the CJEU in the Svensson case, judgment of 13 February 2013 in (C-466/12). The legal definition of internet links has been a widely-discussed subject in recent times, pitting…
“The test in case of sale could therefore be reduced to the following simple question: would there have been an infringement if the seller had been established in the Member State where the buyer resides.” On 6 February 2014, the Court of Justice of the EU issued a decision in the Blomqvist v Rolex SA…
Both the US and the EU now have basic copyright terms of the life of the author plus 70 years. But when US authors simultaneously publish in Canada, they may end up truncating their term of copyright in the EU. Moreover, simultaneous Canadian publication decades ago could have an immediate effect on works by US…
“The activity of the operator of a dedicated meta search engine (…) comes close to the manufacture of a parasitical competing product.” Christmas somewhat overshadowed the publication of a particularly interesting CJEU decision: case C-202/12 (Innoweb), dealing with the legal protection of databases in relation to meta search engines. The judgment was published on 19…
“The first question (territoriality) and the last question (single EU copyright title) could be considered as the alpha and the omega of the questionnaire and they are interlinked in various ways.” A public consultation on the review of EU copyright rules was launched by the European Commission a few days ago . The consultation refers…
By Valentina Moscon, Scholarship holder at the Max Planck Institute & University of Trento The Italian Parliament recently approved a new law concerning the valorization of culture (Law of October 7, 2013, n. 112, G.U. n. 236, 8.10.2013). The law includes, in section 4, a regulation for Open Access (OA) to scientific publications. With this new…
“For the ECJ, in the meaning of Article 5(3) of the Regulation 44/2001, a harmful event may arise from the possibility of obtaining a reproduction of a work from an internet site accessible within the jurisdiction of the court seised.” In its judgement Pinckney v. KDG Mediatech AG of 3 October 2013 (case C-170/12), the…
“If my reasoning is correct, the AG’s conclusion on this specific point (no legal protection must be granted to TPMs which are not used to prevent or inhibit acts of infringement) is much more innovative than the AG herself seems to acknowledge.” On 19 September, Eleanor Sharpston, Advocate General of the Court of Justice of…
