The global intellectual property landscape has witnessed important changes in recent years. Most notably, the public interest dimension of intellectual property has emerged as a paramount concern. Though there seems to be a fairly broad agreement on the need for a more balanced intellectual property system which effectively promotes innovation, views diverge on how to…
[By Dr Luke McDonagh} The UK Government’s response to the Hargreaves’ Review includes the approval of a number of THE reports recommendations, the main ones being the acceptance of the need for a new procedure to clear and license orphan works, and the acceptance that some form of Digital Copyright Exchange is required. With regard…
Territorial licensing of media content has for some time now been a painful stumbling block in the realization of the EU’s ambitious vision for a common, European-wide audiovisual market. One, if not the most important reason why online audiovisual viewers are continuously reminded that the internet is not as borderless as they thought it was…
The summer is no longer quiet for the communications departments of most public sector organizations across the Netherlands! The age long practice of circulating hard copies of newspaper clippings among the employees of an organization is seriously compromised following a decision of the Court of appeal of Leeuwarden. On 13 July, the Court ruled that…
UK: ITV Broadcasting Ltd v TV Catchup Ltd High Court of England and Wales (Patents Court), 18 July 2011 Live-streaming: In a case on internet live-streaming retransmission of TV broadcasts and films, the High Court ruled that the introduction in the UK Copyright Act of a general right of communication to the public with respect…
On July 6, 2011 the Italian Communications Authority (AGCOM) approved the “Draft regulation regarding copyright protection on the electronic communications networks”, currently subject to a 60-day public consultation. As mentioned in my previous posts, AGCOM’s proposal of new rules for the protection of copyright in Internet and audiovisual media services was heavily criticized because of…
UK: Future Publishing Ltd v. Edge Interactive Media Inc., High Court Chancery Division, 13 June 2011. Copyright in logo: US companies involved in the business of computer games had infringed copyright in the logo of a computer gaming magazine (“EDGE”), by using it on letterhead, website and games. The Court found the logo sufficiently original…
UK: Lucasfilm Ltd & Ors v Ainsworth & Anor, Supreme Court, 27 july 2011. Helmets and harmours created for the characters of the Imperial Stormtrooper in the film Star Wars are not “sculptures”, and therefore are not copyrightable subject matter within the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Nevertheless, a claim for infringement of a…
UK: CSC Media Group Ltd v. Video Performance Ltd, Court of Appeal Civil Division, 27 May 2011. Collective management: The Court of Appeal reversed the High Court’s judgement and reinstated the decision of the Copyright Tribunal in respect of the royalty rate payable by CSC Media Group to Video Performance Limited (VPL) for the use…
Finland: Finreactor I, Supreme Court (Korkein oikeus), 30 June 2010. Filesharing: The defendants were administrators of the Finreactor BitTorrent file sharing network. The networks’ users could illegally download copyrighted works. The network was built so that the files were not available on the Finreactor’s site but resided on users’ own computers. Finreactor had a tracker…
