Jurisdiction

Case Law, Collective management, European Union, Jurisdiction, Legislative process, Private copying, Remuneration (equitable)

(Institute for Information Law (IViR)) and (Institute for Information Law (IViR), University of Amsterdam.)/ /Leave a comment

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…

Case Law, Germany, Infringement, Jurisdiction, Making available (right of), Moral rights

(Institute of Legal Informatics, Leibniz Universität Hannover)/ /Leave a comment

“According to Art. 13 of the German Copyright Act (“CA”) the author has the right to be identified as the author of the work. He may determine whether the work shall bear a designation of authorship and which designation is to be used.” The District Court of Cologne (Landgericht Köln) apparently never sleeps. After its…

Case Law, Digital Single Market, European Union, Infringement, Making available (right of)

(Elzaburu)/ /Leave a comment

“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…

Case Law, Distribution (right of), Enforcement, European Union, Exhaustion, Infringement, Jurisdiction

(Marx, Van Ranst, Vermeersch & Partners)/ /Leave a comment

“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…

Case Law, France, Originality, Subject matter (copyrightable)

(REALEX)/ /1 Comment

The Supreme Court maintains its position in a case concerning a Lancôme perfume, stating that ‘copyright only protects creations in their tangible form, so far as this form is identifiable with sufficient precision to permit its communication; whereas the fragrance of a perfume … is not a form that has this characteristic, and therefore cannot…

Duration, European Union, Jurisdiction, USA

(Professor of Law at the George Washington University School of Law)/ /1 Comment

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…

Database right, European Union, Jurisdiction, Netherlands

(London School of Economics)/ /1 Comment

“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…

Case Law, Communication (right of), Digital Single Market, Infringement, Jurisdiction, Netherlands

(Institute for Information Law (IViR))/ /Leave a comment

“In that case, the publication of an hyperlink is, in principle, not an autonomous communication to the public” It is a common fact that the sex-industry, along with the arms industry,  is a driving force behind many new developments. Porn is a major force on the internet and it also shouldn’t come as a surprise…

Case Law, Italy, Jurisdiction

(Monducci Perri Spedicato & Partners)/ /Leave a comment

 “Those who take a train have to accept the risk of being identified abstractly in the crowd of passengers, as this is simply part of the ‘risks of the life’.” The Italian Supreme Court rules that, according to Article 97 of the Italian Copyright Act, the public displaying of the portrait of a person is not…

Collective management, Enforcement, Infringement, Legislative process, Liability, Switzerland

(Lenz & Staehellin, Geneva )/ /2 Comments

The Swiss working group on Copyright (AGUR12) released his report on December 2013 related to management of rights at the digital age. This should lead to a legal basis for a notice and takedown procedure and thus reduce the supply of illegal content, while downloading from illegal sources should remain legal. The original mandate goes…