Enforcement, Germany, Infringement, Jurisdiction, Netherlands, Private copying, Remuneration (equitable), Reproduction (right of)

(iRights.info)/ /Leave a comment

As reported by the Dutch commentator Lucie Guibault in her recent Blogpost the Dutch government (in the person of the secretary of state, Fred Teeven) plans to restrict the private copying limitation. Downloads from “obviously illegal sources” shall be declared unlawful. In Germany such a rule exists already, implemented in the course of the first…

Belgium, Case Law, Collective management, Ownership

(Marx, Van Ranst, Vermeersch & Partners)/ /Leave a comment

BELGIUM – In a case of SABAM (the Belgian Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers) versus a counterfeits dealer, the Belgian Supreme Courts finds that in litigations against copyright infringers, collecting societies can prove the existence of management contracts pertaining to some works by solely producing the official repertoire listing that they mandatorily have to…

Case Law, Denmark, Infringement, Liability, Remedies

(RettighedsAlliancen )/ /Leave a comment

DENMARK – An end user of the Direct Connect file sharing network was found liable for copyright infringements. However, the Supreme Court did not agree with the right holders (respondents) that the extent of the infringements was sufficiently documented and overturned the evidence (a list of files) provided by right holders. Also, the Supreme Court…

Case Law, France, Infringement, Liability

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

On 3 May 2011, the Paris Court of Appeal dismissed the claims of copyright infringement brought by the Syndicat National de l’Edition Phonographique (SNEP- trade association of the French recording industry) against Google. Since 2008, the search engine is proposing a service, Google Suggest, which guesses and suggests a list of keywords in real time…

Exceptions and Limitations, Portugal, Private copying, Remuneration (equitable)

(Maastricht University)/ /1 Comment

On 2 May 2011 the Ministry of Culture in Portugal made public a law proposal concerning the regulation of private copying levies (the English version of which is unfortunately not available). The law currently in force dates from 2004 and had in turn made some changes to the original law, dated from 1998. There have…

Case Law, Poland, Transfer (of right)

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

The commented decision may at first glance appear to be of limited importance only, but after closer examination it contains two interesting points of more general significance. The basic facts are the following: the plaintiff, a collecting society ZAIKS, brought a claim against two companies demanding payment for selling copies of the film “Rejs” (“Cruise”),…

Authorship, Duration, Legislative process, United Kingdom

(Centre for Commercial Law Studies at Queen Mary, University of London)/ /1 Comment

[By Luke McDonagh) The Irish Times has today reported that the copyright in the Irish national anthem is due to expire next year. When the copyright in “A Soldier’s Song”, or as it is known in its Irish language version, “Amhrán na bhFiann”, expires at the end of 2012, the debate is expected to reopen…

European Union, Exceptions and Limitations, Infringement, Legislative process, Netherlands

(Schulich School of Law )/ /1 Comment

On April 11, 2011, the Dutch secretary of state, Fred Teeven, sent his long awaited ‘Priorities Letter Copyright 20@20 ” to the House of Representatives. Among the priorities mentioned, is ‘the promotion and protection of new business models on the Internet through a bill to combat infringing websites and facilitating a re-evaluation of the private…

Case Law, European Union, Originality, Reproduction (right of), Subject matter (copyrightable)

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

The Advocate General’s Opinion in Case C-145/10, Painer v Standard VerlagsGmbH et al., parts of which have already been discussed in an earlier blog post (here), also deals with the copyrightability of portrait photos. In this case, German and Austrian newspaper publishers had published portrait photos of Natascha Kampusch, and a photo-fit based on one…

Case Law, European Union, Exceptions and Limitations

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On 12 April 2011, Advocate General Trstenjak delivered her Opinion in Case C-145/10, Painer v Standard VerlagsGmbH et al., in which the ECJ has been asked to give preliminary guidance on various questions concerning copyright in portrait photos used in news reports. Eva-Maria Painer, a professional photographer, produced portrait photos of Natascha Kampusch prior to…