On 26 September 2024, the Belgian Constitutional Court referred a highly topical issue of fair remuneration of authors and performers on online streaming platforms to the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU). The reference, which is poised to result in one of the most significant CJEU judgments in the copyright law field, concerns the…

1. A ‘Google Zero’ World? “I got the new stuff!” are the background lyrics of the latest Google advertisement about the future of online search. “Overviews” is a new feature that is gradually being rolled out to Google’s users globally. This new specialised feature makes it possible to summarise the web and show users an…

In a statement made on 12 October 2023, the French collecting society Sacem, which represents most authors/composers and publishers of music in France, announced that it is opting out of machine learning training for the works in its repertoire. Sacem explains that it is basing its opt-out from generative AI systems on Article L122-5-3 of…

Order no. 2021-580 of 12 May 2021 (‘transposition Order’) of the French Government implements articles 2(6) and 17 to 23 of the EU Directive 2019/790 on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market (‘CDSM’). In a ruling of 15 November 2022, the French administrative Supreme Court annulled the transposition Order to the extent that it does…

The removal of SIAE’s repertoire from Meta’s social networks “This song is currently unavailable” or “The audio track in your reel is no longer available. You can replace the audio track once, which will also remove any original audio in your reel”. These are some of the messages appearing on Instagram or Facebook to users…

Despite the increasing use of streaming services, where media content is not stored on local devices, but merely accessed online, the private copying exception (Art 5(2)(b) InfoSoc Directive) remains at the center of European jurisprudence.  In the Austro-Mechana v. Strato case, the Austrian courts have to decide whether the remuneration for private copying must also be…

2021 saw a very active German Bundesgerichtshof (“BGH” – Federal Supreme Court) in the area of copyright law. This article covers the most relevant copyright law decisions of the BGH from that year. Part I addressed decisions in the areas of scope of protection, exploitation rights, exceptions and limitations, and copyright contract law. Part II…

The increasing costs of publication under the Gold Open Access model and “Big Deals”   The European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities (ALLEA) has for many years supported the move away from proprietary models of scientific publishing towards Open Access (OA).[1] OA publication of publicly funded scientific research bears the triple promise of…

The Conseil d’Etat, the French administrative Supreme Court, handed down an important ruling on 15 November 2022 which annuls Order no. 2021-580 of 12 May 2021 (‘2021 Order’) of the French Government that implements articles 2(6) and 17 to 23 of the EU Directive 2019/790 on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market…

According to Article 16 EU DSM Directive 2019/790 (“DSM Directive”), a “publisher” may have a claim to a share of the author’s statutory remuneration claims – such as fair compensation for private copies – if the author has granted the “publisher” a right in his work. But who is this “publisher”? After the adoption of…