As we enter a new year, we would like to take this opportunity to pass on our best wishes for 2024 to all of our readers, as well as reflect on developments in copyright over the past year. Last year was another busy one in the copyright world, with ongoing European copyright reform, a number…
THJ Systems Limited & Anor v Daniel Sheridan & Anor [2023] EWCA Civ 1354 concerned many issues but the one of most interest was the correct legal test to consider whether a copyright work is original. One would think this has been well rehearsed in numerous cases already, but the Court of Appeal decision…
Copyright protection in machine-generated works is not a new issue for law makers. The traditional concept of human authorship was first challenged with the emergence of photography and this has continued every time a new technology comes about. In the U.S., the case of Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony, 111 U.S. 53 (1884) extended copyright…
Recently, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, in line with several decisions of the U.S. Copyright Office’s Review Board, found that human creativity is the sine qua non of copyrightability, refusing to register a work lacking human creative involvement or control. In this way, the U.S. jurisprudence embraces the distinction between…
The UK High Court has held that Lidl’s rights in the Lidl logo were infringed by Tesco’s Clubcard Price(s) signs ([2023] EWHC 873 (Ch)). Specifically, the court made the following findings. Trade mark infringement – Lidl’s trade mark for the Lidl logo was infringed by Tesco’s Clubcard Price(s) signs, which took unfair advantage of Lidl’s…
The UK government has recently announced its plans to introduce a code of practice on copyright and artificial intelligence (AI). The guidance and all supporting documents can be found here. This goes in line with the government’s ten-year National AI Strategy, for the UK to remain a global AI superpower and for AI companies to…
Perhaps it comes as no surprise that a copyright dispute regarding a fire-breathing–sneezing dragon would get so heated. The case of Evans v John Lewis Plc & Anor [2023] EWHC 766 (IPEC) is a copyright infringement claim in which the IPEC (a specialist IP court in the UK) was asked to decide whether John Lewis’s…
Introduction: Generative AI regulatory framework There is a huge debate around Generative AI and the need to regulate such disrupting technology (see here and here). Very different approach has been adopted in the European Union, which is going to introduce by the end of 2023 a EU AI Act (here), in the UK, which is…
Summary In the case of Wright & Ors v BTC Core & Ors [2023] EWHC 222 the High Court was faced with a technical copyright question about whether literary copyright can subsist in the file format used for the Bitcoin System (the “Bitcoin File Format”). Justice Mellor concluded that copyright could not subsist in the…
Part I of this blog introduced the first of three ambiguities NFT purchasers may face. In this part II we discuss two additional aspects, with a focus on UK copyright law and the EU copyright acquis. The First Sale Doctrine in the Metaverse The first sale doctrine, also referred to as the ‘principle of…
