Legislative process

Exceptions and Limitations, Legislative process, Private copying, Remuneration (equitable), Reproduction (right of)

/ /Leave a comment

An Italian administrative court says yes. Directive 29/2001/EC on copyright and related rights in the information society introduced the principle that EU Member States may authorize individuals to make copies of copyrighted audio, visual and audio-visual works, for private use, without the need to request authorization to right holders, subject to the general condition that…

European Union, Jurisdiction, Legislative process, Netherlands

(Institute for Information Law (IViR))/ /Leave a comment

Yesterday, the European Parliament adopted a resolution by which it urges EU Member States to combat tax fraud and evasion. The resolution was adopted by a large majority, 538 votes in favour to 73 against. What could make this tax-resolution of interest for copyrightholders and holders of other IPR’s is the suggestion that very popular…

Collective management, Exceptions and Limitations, France, Legislative process, Making available (right of), Reproduction (right of)

(Schulich School of Law )/ /1 Comment

Without much noise, France recently adopted Act Nr. 2012-287 of 1st March 2012 relating to the digital exploitation of unavailable books of the 20th century. Contrary to past initiatives from the French lawmaker, the Act does not relate to orphan works, but rather to out-of-commerce works. Or, more precisely: books. According to the explanatory memorandum…

Enforcement, France, Jurisdiction, Legislative process

(Institute for Information Law (IViR))/ /Leave a comment

In this period of French presidential campaign, the HADOPI law has become a popular and recurrent topic. Most of the candidates have expressed an opinion (more or less constant) on the future of the law (whether to amend it, replace it, abrogate it or keep it as it is). This blog is certainly not the…

Collective management, European Union, Legislative process, Making available (right of), Ownership, Reproduction (right of)

(Schulich School of Law )/ /Leave a comment

The Proposal for a Directive on certain permitted uses of orphan works, introduced in the European Parliament on 24 May 2011, has been following its merry way through the legislative meanders ever since. The debates around the text of the proposal are heating up right now, for the European Commission pushes for rapid adoption while…

Enforcement, European Union, Jurisdiction, Legislative process

(University of Cyprus)/ /Leave a comment

What would be the ingredients of a magic formula for better IPR enforcement on the Internet? Has the time come for a horizontal harmonization for notifying and acting on illegal on line content? In a period where the ratification of ACTA is ranked highly in the political agenda of European governments, the European Commission is…

Enforcement, European Union, Legislative process, Poland

(Institute of Intellectual Property Law, Jagiellonian University Kraków)/ /Leave a comment

The clouds of dust raised by the turbulent discussion about ACTA in Poland seem to be slowly settling and the time has come to make some evaluations. What has happened with ACTA in Poland has surely caught the attention of the world (or at least Europe), but perhaps the scale of it is still underestimated….

Infringement, Italy, Legislative process, Liability

/ /Leave a comment

We are experiencing a new trend by Italian first instance courts in addressing the issue of liability of hosting providers for contents posted by users in copyright infringement cases. The new approach is likely to impose providers of video sharing platforms (such as YouTube, Dailymotion and others) dramatic changes in their model of business, with…

Enforcement, Ireland, Legislative process, Liability, Remedies

/ /1 Comment

by Linda Scales, solicitor, Dublin. A copyright controversy has been raging in Ireland this week. The SOPA/PIPA debate fuelled fears that an unpublished piece of secondary legislation would provide a regime similar to that proposed in the US. The Irish instrument was labelled “Ireland’s SOPA”, even though no one knew what the document contained. In…