The variation of the Austrian National Anthem by setting it to a modernised “rock-version” of the classic tune and by changing the line “You are home to great sons” to “You are home to great sons and daughters” for use in an information campaign by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture, does…

According to the Austrian Supreme Court, the EU Copyright Directive 2001/29/EC harmonises the right of communication to the public, assuming a consistent European term of publicity. The right of communication to the public is characterised by an element of distance. Therefore, the distribution by a hotel of a broadcast via TV to the TV-sets situated…

The defendant, the so-called “cooperative of CD co-owners”, abuses the ‘personal use’ exeption under Article 30 of Copyright, together with the three-step-test under Article 29(1) of Copyright Act, while he operates as a covert form of lending company (see previously reported cases concerning cooperatives of CD co-owners, in Kluwer database). The court, as in previous…

A Belgian band uploaded some songs on a freely accessible website under a non-commercial & no derivative Creative Commons licence. A Belgian theatre used one of the songs to create an advertisement for the next theatrical season, which was broadcasted on several national radios channels. The Court found that the theatre did not respect the…

National legislation implementing the Directive on the legal protection of designs (98/71/EC) may not exclude from copyright protection designs that were protected by a registered design right and entered into the public domain before the entry into force of said legislation, in so long as they meet the requirements to be eligible for copyright protection….

In its arrest of 3 June 2010, the Supreme Court of Belgium decided that the presumption of transfer to the employer of patrimonial copyrights in a program created within an employment relationship, does does not apply in a situation where a program is developed by the statutory manager of a limited liability company. Click here…