It cannot have evaded the notice of anyone interested in copyright matters that Judge Chin at a New York federal district court recently has rejected the so-called Google Book Settlement (GBS). While holding that “the digitization of books and the creation of a universal digital library would benefit many”, Judge Chin argued that the GBS…
As a follow up to my previous post on the Google decisions, I am presenting a recent report issued by two senators (Mr. Laurent Béteille and Mr. Richard Yung) on the application of the anti-counterfeiting law (loi n. 2007-1544 of 29 October 2007 de lutte contre la contrefaçon). The report contains 18 recommendations aimed at…
The Communications Authority proposal to have a leading role in the protection of copyright on electronic communication networks (as explained in its Resolution 668/10/CONS commented in the previous post) has provoked opposite reactions from copyright owners on one side and supporters of major ISPs on the other side. The Italian federation for the protection against…
The use of a photograph of a politician with a child, in combination with a satirical text, in a self-advertisement of a news magazine, is not covered by the freedom of satire when the satire does not concern daily political events but is merely commercially self-serving. Furthermore, the implication of a political relationship between the…
In this decision the Court of Cassation confirmed that Dailymotion was an online intermediary provider, who did not intervene in the content and choice of videos posted by users on its platform. In addition, the commercial exploitation of the website through the sale of advertising spaces did not induce that Dailymotion could intervene on the…
As mentioned in a previous post, on 22 March 2011 the Spanish Audiencia Nacional (High Court) annulled for formal reasons the Spanish ordinance that determines which digital reproduction equipment and media are subject to the private copying levies. The ordinance had been challenged before the Spanish courts by the Asociación de Internautas (an Internet users’…
What is and what is not a copyright work is a question even copyright lawyers find difficult to answer when confronted with subject matter on the verge of the required standard of originality. Polish copyright law has quite a long tradition of setting the threshold rather low, which may encourage frivolous lawsuits forcing courts to…
Two contradictory legislative proposals have been quite recently submitted for discussion at the Belgian Parliament, which should implement solutions to the thorny file-sharing issue. On the one hand, Senators Morael and Pyryns proposed on 9 December 2010 [Doc 5-590/1] a law “aiming at adapting the perception of copyright to the technological evolution while preserving privacy…
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…
In four recent decisions (respectively relating to the movies “le génocide arménien”; “l’affaire Clearstream”; “les dissimulateurs” and “Mondovino”), the Paris Court of Appeal held Google liable for copyright infringement. The facts of the different cases are similar: an Internet user had placed an unauthorized copy of a movie on Google Video. Following the procedure set…
