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…
“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…
“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…
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…
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…
UK: High Court Chancery Division, 23 March 2012, Seaton v Seddon. The members of the reggae band Musical Youth brought a case against their former solicitors with regards to the royalties due from a hit single: “Pass the Dutchie”. This song was an arrangement of another piece of music, entitled “Pass the Kouchie”. The claim in…
Patents Court London, 12 January 2012, Temple Island Collections Ltd v New English Teas Ltd & Nicholas John Houghton. A photograph of a red Routemaster bus travelling across Westminster Bridge with the Houses of Parliament and the bridge shown in gray, which shares visually significant elements with the claimant’s photograph, infringes copyright, despite the fact…
High Court Chancery Division, 3 February 2012, Football Association Premier League v QC Leisure. Further to a referral to the ECJ on, inter alia, the meaning of “communication to the public” under art. 3 of the Directive 2001/29 (Case C-403/83), the High Court ruled that the showing of broadcasts (football matches) via television screens and…
Patents Court London, 19 January 2012, Hoffman v Drug Abuse Resistance Education. A charity infringed copyright in photographs by including them in its website withouth the author’s permission. The fact that the charity was under a good-faith impression that it had permission to use the photographs, as they appeared in a website that was covered…
UK: High Court Chancery Division, 09-11-2011: Forensic Telecommunications Services Ltd v. Chief Constable of West Copyright does not subsist in a list of permanent memory absolute (“PM Abs”) addresses of mobile phones that are used to extract data from mobile phones in forensic investigations. There may have been an expenditure of skill, labour and judgement…
