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.

AG Opinion, Case Law, CDSM Directive, CJEU, Communication (right of), Contract, European Union, Exceptions and Limitations, Legislative process, Private copying, Reproduction (right of)

(University College London) and (Institute for Information Law (IViR))/ /Leave a comment

Welcome to the first trimester of the 2023 round up of EU copyright law! In this edition, we report on an AG Opinion that came out late in 2022 and update you on what has happened in the first trimester of 2023 in EU copyright law. This includes Court of Justice (CJEU) and General Court…

Case Law, Exceptions and Limitations, Italy

(University of Trento)/ /Leave a comment

On 30 December 2022, the Italian Supreme Court (Corte di Cassazione) issued an order that intervened again on the interpretation of the quotation exception under Article 70 of the Italian Copyright Act (l. 633/1941, l.aut.). The decision concerns an advertising campaign of a mineral water company. The commercial video promoting the mineral water features a…

CDSM Directive, Digital Single Market, European Union, Exceptions and Limitations

(Europeana Foundation), (KVAN / IP Squared), and (DDA LAW FIRM)/ /Leave a comment

In August 2020, a review of the Orphan Works Directive (2012/28/EU), or OWD, was initiated by the European Commission. The study concluded that the OWD has had limited practical impact, but the European Commission has not proposed any modifications to the Directive. This post provides a short introduction to the OWD, an overview of the…

CDSM Directive, Digital Single Market, European Union, Exceptions and Limitations

(iRights.info) and (GFF (Society for Civil Rights))/ /4 Comments

Pastiche is one of the newer harmonized user rights in EU copyright law. The exception for caricature, parody and pastiche was made mandatory as part of Article 17 of the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive (CDSMD) in 2019. Although the implementation deadline passed in 2021, several Member States have yet to transpose the…

Artificial Intelligence (AI), CDSM Directive, Digital Single Market, European Union, Exceptions and Limitations, Text and Data Mining (TDM), USA

(Washington College of Law) and (SciencesPo)/ /1 Comment

A series of recent amendments to copyright law, including in the EU Copyright and the Digital Single Market Directive (Art. 3 and 4) and in Singapore’s new Copyright Act (Art. 243, 244), seek to protect the ability of text and data mining researchers to use copyrighted content in their work. “Text and data mining” (“TDM”)…

Case Law, Exceptions and Limitations, Fair Use, Infringement, USA

(Authors Alliance)/ /Leave a comment

This post is based in part on an amicus brief filed by the Harvard Cyberlaw Clinic on behalf of Authors Alliance and ComicMix before the United States Supreme Court in Jack Daniels v. VIP Products. Ordinarily, authors who write parodies look to copyright limitations and exceptions to protect their rights. In the United States, the…

Authorship, Case Law, Exceptions and Limitations, Germany

, (NORDEMANN)/ /Leave a comment

The implementation transposition of the Copyright Directive 2019/790 (DSMD) in the summer of 2021 represented probably the greatest reform in German copyright law since the German Copyright Act (UrhG) came into force. Germany’s implementation of Art. 17 DSMD was discussed in an earlier blog post by Julian Waiblinger and Jonathan Pukas. The other changes to…

Brazil, Exceptions and Limitations, Legislative process, Text and Data Mining (TDM)

, (Brazilian Copyright Institute (IBDAutoral))/ /Leave a comment

Introduction: Brazilian Copyright Framework and the existing L&Es Brazil has signed most Intellectual Property (IP) law Treaties, but notably it has not adhered to the WIPO Copyright or the WIPO Phonogram and Performance Treaties. The main national legal instrument for copyright is the Brazilian Copyright Law (Law n. 9.610/98), which is complemented by the software…

Digital Single Market, European Union, Exceptions and Limitations, Text and Data Mining (TDM)

(Luiss Guido Carli University) and (University College Dublin)/ /Leave a comment

This contribution was posted first on 17 January 2023 on  The Digital Constitutionalist under the title: Safeguarding the Constitutional Role of Media as Fourth Estate of Democracy: Copyright as a Regulatory Framework for Freedom of Expression and Access to Information Online.   In September 2022, the European Commission published its draft European Media Freedom Act…