On 15 March 2012 the CJEU has ruled two cases where it had been asked to decide whether producers of phonograms (or the collecting society on their behalf) are entitled to obtain equitable remuneration when a user allows its clients to hear the phonogram by way of background music in a place subject to his…

The New Year’s festivities are just behind us and with these the celebrations around Public Domain Day 2012 that took place in different cities in and outside Europe (Warsaw, Zurich, Turin, Rome, Haifa etc.). 2012 brings with it the joy of using James Joyce’s masterpieces without asking the estate for prior authorization (which more often…

Bad news from Denmark. According to an official press release, the Danish government has changed its position and now endorses the European Commission’s proposal to extend the term of protection for sound recordings. Since Denmark was part of a fragile blocking minority in the European Council, there is a danger now that the EU Presidency…

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…

The issue of protection of the neighbouring rights of Greek actors in Cyprus has been examined recently by the District Court of Nicosia. The case concerned the broadcasting of Greek movies by a Cypriot broadcasting organization. The collecting society managing the performers rights in Cyprus demanded equitable remuneration for the broadcasting of films on the…

Due to massive lobbying of the German press publishers, the new conservative-liberal German Government declared in its coalition contract in late 2009: “Press Publishers shall not be discriminated against other disseminators of copyright protected works [e.g. film or music producers]. Therefore we aim at the introduction of a neighbouring right for press publishers to increase…