Technological measures

Technological measures (also known as technological protection measures or TPMs) are technical means, such as encryption, relied on by authors and other rights owners to control unauthorised copying, transmission and use of their products. The WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT) require adequate legal protection and effective legal remedies against the circumvention of TPMs applied to protected works and phonograms.

Case Law, CJEU, Communication (right of), European Union, Making available (right of), Netherlands, Technological measures

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

Once again, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) will be asked to provide clarity on the concept of “communication to the public” as laid down in article 3 of the 2001 Copyright in the Information Society Directive (InfoSoc Directive). On 20 September 2024, the Dutch Supreme Court expressed its intention to refer…

CDSM Directive, Digital Single Market, European Union, Technological measures

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Today marks the fifth anniversary of the entry into force of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. It is hard to remember how divisive and controversial the Directive was during its creation. The Directive’s most controversial provision – Article 17 – which brought hundreds of thousands of people onto the streets and…

Communication (right of), Enforcement, Infringement, Technological measures

(Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary University of London), (University of Bristol), and (Queen Mary University of London)/ /Leave a comment

This is a two-part post summarising the authors’ findings from the report on Copyright Infringement in the Video Game Industry which was prepared by the authors for the World Intellectual Property Organization. Part 1 looked at the state of the art of the video game industry, as well as at cloning and cheating. This part…

Case Law, CJEU, Communication (right of), European Union, Infringement, Liability, Making available (right of), Technological measures

(University of Cyprus)/ /1 Comment

On March 9th, 2021 the CJEU delivered its eagerly awaited decision on the VG Kunst case (C‑392/19). The facts of the case are interesting, since the question of the lawfulness of frame linking and of inline linking was not directly raised. Instead, it appears indirectly in the context of the assessment of licence terms requiring…

CJEU, Communication (right of), European Union, Germany, Technological measures

(University Trier)/ /Leave a comment

Introduction and background Most internet pages are put together from different elements and can include text, pictures or videos which are originally displayed on websites and stored on servers of third parties. Visitors to the internet page usually cannot distinguish between content that is stored on servers controlled by the webpage owner and that stored…

Case Law, Communication (right of), Infringement, Liability, Netherlands, Remedies, Technological measures

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On November 13th the Dutch Supreme Court provided another chapter in the case of ISPs and blocking of the Pirate Bay (hereafter: TPB). It decided that the Court of Appeal had used an incorrect, namely too broad, criterion to judge the effectiveness of a blocking measure. Furthermore, preliminary questions were referred to the ECJ concerning…

Case Law, CJEU, European Union, Private copying, Technological measures

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

On March 5, 2015 the Court of Justice of the European Union (the ‘Court’ or ‘CJEU’) ruled on Case C-463/12 Copydan Båndkopi v Nokia Danmark A/S (‘Copydan’). The case marks the seventh occasion on which the Court has ruled on the issue of the private copying limitation under art. 5(2)(b) Directive 2001/29/EC (the ‘Directive’), following…

European Union, Italy, Jurisdiction, Technological measures

(Monducci Perri Spedicato & Partners)/ /Leave a comment

“If my reasoning is correct, the AG’s conclusion on this specific point (no legal protection must be granted to TPMs which are not used to prevent or inhibit acts of infringement) is much more innovative than the AG herself seems to acknowledge.” On 19 September, Eleanor Sharpston, Advocate General of the Court of Justice of…

Case Law, Enforcement, Infringement, Jurisdiction, Liability, Netherlands, Technological measures

(Institute for Information Law (IViR))/ /1 Comment

On 10 May, the District Court of The Hague extended an earlier ruling with regard to two access providers to block The Pirate Bay to several major Dutch access providers.  The providers lament the ruling and consider appealing it, but soon more than 90% of the Dutch market blocks the infamous website. On the same…

Case Law, Infringement, Liability, Remedies, Technological measures

(Marx, Van Ranst, Vermeersch & Partners)/ /1 Comment

The CJEU’s ruling in the Scarlet v. SABAM case (C 70/10) is still fresh in our memories: court injunctions to install global and preventative filtering systems with a view to preventing copyright infringements are precluded. SABAM asked again for the same measures in the framework of the SABAM v. Netlog litigation. Again, the Belgian court…