“A clear intention to solve some of the most disturbing problems in Spanish IP.” On February 14th, the Spanish Government approved a bill to amend the law of intellectual property (TRLPI). The bill is currently in its parliamentary proceedings. It is a “patchwork” reform bill dealing with very different topics, some more necessary than others, and…
“The Court added a cherry on top of the transparency cake.” It is no secret that secrecy in the TTIP negotiations has been bothering several sectors of civil society (apologies, but the links to back this up were too many to insert here). Just last week, the Court of Justice has issued a decision in…
We have closed our second blog poll and we have counted the votes. First of all, it is heartwarming to see that more readers are concerned about the position of orphans than about private copying: whereas our first blog poll about the orphan works directive attracted a few thousand voters, this second poll closed with a result…
“Does the European Single Market provide the right legal framework for the unhindered exchange of formats between the Member States?” Formats, especially television formats, have proven their commercial value, but the question whether copyright protection also applies to these products of the mind, which they undoubtedly are, cannot be answered easily and there are valid…
“The study concludes that under their domestic copyright laws none of the current EU Member States offer protection to sports events as such. A handful of countries, however, afford some special form of protection to the specific interests of sports organizers.” A study on sports organizers’ rights was launched by the European Commission in January…
In France, search engines using thumbnails are likely to infringe on copyright. On 8 April 2014, a French Senator proposed a Bill to establish compulsory collective management for the reproduction of photographs and images by search engine services. Thumbnails are reduced-size versions of photographs and images, used by search engines such as Google Images in…
Important ruling by Dutch Supreme Court on cable retransmission, film copyright and collective management of rights Guest blog by Prof. Dr D.J.G. Visser, Institute for Private Law, Leiden University “This could well mean that several Dutch collecting societies, in particular those representing actors, screenwriters and directors (Norma, Lira and Vevam) can no longer claim remuneration…
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…
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…
“The first question (territoriality) and the last question (single EU copyright title) could be considered as the alpha and the omega of the questionnaire and they are interlinked in various ways.” A public consultation on the review of EU copyright rules was launched by the European Commission a few days ago . The consultation refers…
