Exceptions and Limitations

Exceptions and Limitations to copyright are provisions which allow for works protected by copyright to be used in specific situations without a licence from the copyright owner. There are numerous limitations and exceptions found in copyright legislation including, for example, the fair use exception, exceptions for libraries, archives and educational institutions, and the back-up copy exception.

Authorship, Collective management, European Union, Exceptions and Limitations, Legislative process, Making available (right of), Reproduction (right of)

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Last week, the European Parliament approved the draft Directive on certain permitted uses of orphan works. The approval of the Council of Ministers is expected to occur shortly. This is big news indeed, for it’s the first draft directive in the area of copyright law to make it this far in more than 10 years….

Case Law, Enforcement, Exceptions and Limitations, Fair Use, Infringement, Jurisdiction, Spain

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By Raquel Xalabarder, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya “This ruling is very good news for the recent doctrinal attempts to bring some flexibility in the way copyright laws are being interpreted and applied.  It is difficult to predict the impact that this ruling may have in successive case law, but it is certainly an important milestone…

European Union, Exceptions and Limitations, Legislative process, Making available (right of), Reproduction (right of)

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Literary works, photos, films and music and other items that constitute our common cultural heritage are stored in the collections of cultural institutions, such as publicly accessible libraries, museums and archives. Many of these items are still protected by copyright, but their right holders cannot be identified or located – i.e. the works are so-called…

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

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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…

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…

Case Law, European Union, Exceptions and Limitations, Infringement, Reproduction (right of)

(Department of Business Law, Lund University)/ /Leave a comment

This entry deals with some aspects of the decision by order by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in Case C-302/10 (Infopaq II) on 17 January. The reference for a preliminary ruling was brought to the CJEU by the Danish Supreme Court and concerns the interpretation of Article 5(1) and 5(5) of…

Case Law, Exceptions and Limitations, Poland

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

One may sometimes get the impression that competition law and consumer protection law can shed new light on any other regulation of a legal system, no matter how well established. An interesting example of this trend has been provided by a recent decision of the Polish Court for the Protection of Competition and Consumers in…

Case Law, European Union, Exceptions and Limitations, Legislative process, Making available (right of), Reproduction (right of)

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

On May 22 of this year Directive 2001/29/EC was exactly 10 years old – a birthday largely gone unnoticed. The ‘Copyright Directive’ or ‘Information Society Directive’ (for experts: ‘InfoSoc Directive’) marked an important stage in the process of harmonization of copyright and related rights in the European Union. In contrast to earlier directives that dealt…

Austria, Case Law, Exceptions and Limitations, Making available (right of), Originality

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

By Mireille van Eechoud, Institute for Information Law (IViR) Of the many questions addressed by the Court in its Painer judgment (Case C-145/10) the most impact will probably be on the construction of an EU wide originality criterion for copyright works. Infopaq, BSA and Murphy went before, seemingly extending the originality standard implicit in the…

Exceptions and Limitations, France, Legislative process, Remuneration (equitable)

(Université de Versailles (St-Quentin))/ /Leave a comment

By Prof. Valérie-Laure Benabou, Université de Versailles (St-Quentin). France is currently modifying, in emergency, its legislation on private copying levy and more generally on private copying after the ECJ decisions Padawan and ThuisKopie. The reason for this urgency is twofold: substantial and procedural. The French Council of State (Conseil d’Etat) has held in a decision…