United Kingdom unregistered design right (“UDR”) cases are complicated. The precise nature of the UDR claimed is often difficult to express (from a claimant perspective) and often difficult to comprehend (from a defendant perspective). UDR were created to complement the protection afforded by copyright and registered design rights in the UK. Registered design law provides…
Introduction from the editors Last week, the UK Supreme Court handed down its judgment in R (Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, a case in which the court had to determine the steps required under UK law before the process of leaving the European Union can be initiated. It goes without…
On 22 November 2016, the Court of Appeal of Amsterdam decided the case Pearson v. Bär Software (the judgment is only available in Dutch). The judgment seems remarkable in light of the CJEU’s earlier ruling in the Ryanair case. How do they compare? The Pearson case The Pearson v. Bär Software case considered a collection…
The proprietors of a muscle car restoration business, Dan and Gary Pronman, were liable for the attorney fees incurred by the operators of a complaint website in successfully defending against frivolous copyright infringement claims based on the website operators’ allegedly unlawful reproduction and publication of copyrighted photographs owned by the Pronmans, the U.S. Court of…
In the past few months, the press exception has been at the centre of attention in court proceedings in Serbia. The Appeal Court has concluded that a photograph, protected by copyright, taken a few minutes after a car accident where seven people were injured was an integral part of the current event about which the…
Lower courts can give fresh insight into the adjudication taking place at the highest national and European courts. This is especially true for the recent GS Media case. The German and Dutch courts have created new food for thought on the meaning of placing a hyperlink ‘for profit’. The exact meaning of this notion is…
The French Act No. 2012-287 of 1 March 2012 ‘on the digital exploitation of unavailable books of the twentieth century’ created a specific compulsory collective management system for out-of-commerce books, in Articles L.134-1 to L.134-9 French intellectual property Code (‘IPC’). These new provisions were intended to allow the digitisation and reissuing of books that are…
Decision Landgericht (District Court) Hamburg of November 18, 2016 (file no. 310 O 402/16) Introduction In GS Media vs. Sanoma, the CJEU recently ruled that linking to illegal content may be considered to be a “communication to the public” and can therefore constitute copyright infringement (C-160/15 of 8 September 2016). The District Court Hamburg has…
2016 was a busy year for European copyright law. Unsurprisingly, Brexit and its potential impact on copyright in Europe and the UK was one of the most popular topics on the Kluwer Copyright Blog. Other hot topics included the much-anticipated CJEU judgment in the GS Media case and the ongoing EU copyright reform. We provide a countdown below…
From August 8th to September 22nd 2016, the Colombian Ministry of Commerce made a public call for comments on a draft reform of the current copyright legislation. A key change that this proposal could have included was conspicuous by its absence: the parody exception. Colombian civil society has advocated for a change to this. The…
