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 implementation transposition of the Copyright Directive 2019/790 (DSMD) in the summer of 2021 represented probably the greatest reform in German copyright law since the German Copyright Act (UrhG) came into force. Germany’s implementation of Art. 17 DSMD was discussed in an earlier blog post by Julian Waiblinger and Jonathan Pukas. The other changes to…
As generative machine learning (ML) systems become more mainstream, the discussion about copyright and ML input is back in the spotlight. At the heart of this discussion is the question of whether authors, creators, and other rightholders need to give permission before their works can be used as input for generative ML systems that produce…
The recent blog post by Matt Hervey provides an interesting summary by someone who clearly has a good understanding of the subject matter. It does seem a bit one-sided in making it sound (to me, anyway) like people, governments or courts who oppose copyright protection of AI-generated works are fighting a rear guard battle and…
1. Introduction Last week, a preliminary hearing took place before the European Court of Justice (CJEU), in a case dealing with the implementation of the Collective Rights Management (CRM) Directive (2014/26/EU) in Italy. The AG Opinion is expected on 11th May. The Civil Court of Rome submitted a preliminary ruling request (No. 10/2022), in the…
Works generated through complex AI systems, such as machine learning and text-to-image generation models, have recently stirred up many discussions and even given rise to lawsuits (here and here). Voices emerged questioning whether current EU copyright laws should be amended in light of the many AI-generated works that have come about. One important question has…
This post looks back at the key developments in AI and copyright in 2022, covering generative AI, text and data mining exceptions, the pastiche exception, deep fakes, voice cloning and infringement and enforcement of copyright using AI.
The decisions of the BGH (German Federal Court of Justice) in “YouTube II”, “uploaded II” and “uploaded III” have changed things, at least for hosting providers, in one key aspect: hosting providers can now be (indirectly) liable for the copyright infringements committed by their users, if those hosting providers violate duties of care. This post…
Introduction: Brazilian Copyright Framework and the existing L&Es Brazil has signed most Intellectual Property (IP) law Treaties, but notably it has not adhered to the WIPO Copyright or the WIPO Phonogram and Performance Treaties. The main national legal instrument for copyright is the Brazilian Copyright Law (Law n. 9.610/98), which is complemented by the software…
Because such relief was not specified in the Act, a demand for such relief required service of an amended complaint upon a defaulting defendant. A plaintiff who prevailed in a copyright infringement lawsuit against a defaulting defendant was required to serve an amended complaint upon that defendant if the amended complaint newly sought to hold…
