United Kingdom

Case Law, Communication (right of), Enforcement, Infringement, Remedies, United Kingdom

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This case concerned blocking orders pursuant to s97A of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA). The Court found that there was copyright infringement by both UK users and operators of file-sharing websites, insofar as there was communication of copyright works, the communication was to the public, and the act of communication took place in the UK.  This…

Case Law, Enforcement, Infringement, United Kingdom

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The claimants, all members of the Motion Picture Association of America holding copyright in a large number of films and TV programmes, were granted a blocking order preventing the use of Popcorn Time, an open source streaming application which used the BitTorrent protocol to download the claimants’ copyright content. A full summary of this case…

Case Law, Infringement, Originality, United Kingdom

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A claim for infringement of copyright and design rights failed. There was no good reason to reject evidence that the fabric in question was created without sight of the claimant’s fabric; the similarities between the designs were not sufficient to infer that there had been subconscious copying. A full summary of this case has been published on Kluwer IP…

Case Law, Communication (right of), Digital Single Market, Enforcement, Infringement, Remedies, Software, United Kingdom

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Another blocking order in the UK, however, this time there was some complexity about the actual acts of infringement. In Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation & Ors v Sky UK Ltd & Ors, the High Court considered the circumstances in which website blocking orders should be granted against websites facilitating the use of a “sophisticated…

Case Law, CJEU, European Union, Infringement, United Kingdom

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In a decision that could have serious implications for websites providing real time streaming of free to air broadcasts, the English Court of Appeal has recently handed down its Judgment in the case of ITV Broadcasting Limited and others v TV Catchup Limited and others [2015] EWCA Civ 204.  The outcome is that the action…

Collective management, Jurisdiction, Legislative process, United Kingdom

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On the 1st October 2014, the Copyright and Rights in Performances (Extended Collective Licensing) Regulations 2014 came into force in the UK.1   Licensing bodies and collecting societies already operate within the UK, providing rights management and licensing services for their rightsholder members across a range of sectors including publishing, art and design, music and…

United Kingdom

(Schulich School of Law )/ /2 Comments

“The results are just about as astonishing as the number of people who participated.” In our first Kluwer Blog Poll, we asked for your reaction to the two following statements regarding the implementation of Directive 2012/28/EC on certain permitted uses of orphan works: 1) whether the Directive would significantly facilitate the mass-digitization efforts of cultural…

Case Law, European Union, Infringement, Jurisdiction, Reproduction (right of), United Kingdom

(CIPIL, University of Cambridge)/ /1 Comment

“Before finalising its decision however, it is seeking the CJEU’s input on whether end users, who view web-pages on their computers without downloading or printing them, are committing infringements of copyright if they lack a licence from the rightholder.” On 29 June 2013 the UK Supreme Court referred a series of questions in Case C-360/13 Public…

Legislative process, Netherlands, United Kingdom

(Schulich School of Law )/ /1 Comment

On 27 September, the Dutch government introduced what at first glance would seem an inconsequential proposal, e.g. to amend the Register Act of 1970 whereby the possibility for legal and natural persons to register their copyright protected work at the tax office will be eliminated. Should the Dutch proposal be adopted, the registration of private…

Case Law, Enforcement, Infringement, Liability, United Kingdom

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UK: High Court Chancery Division, 26 March 2012,  Golden Eye (International) Ltd v Telefonica UK Ltd. Copyright owners (‘owners of the copyrights in pornographic films’) brought a claim for Norwich Pharmacal relief (“If through no fault of his own a person gets mixed up in the tortious acts of others so as to facilitate their…