Interest in eSports (‘electronic sports’ or competitive video gaming) has accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic. With many traditional face-to-face sports suspended, eSports have become an attractive viable competitor for self-isolating new and existing fans alike. With no geographic discrimination, an all-digital medium and even ‘anyone allowed to play’ tournament models, eSports is now a nascent…
As reported in a previous blog post, the Australian government has been intensively negotiating the Australian version of the press publishers’ right, the News Media Bargaining Code. The legislation was initially proposed in July 2020 and, following tough negotiations with industry stakeholders, the slightly amended News Media Bargaining Code was eventually passed by the Australian…
Introduction A few weeks ago, the “International Instrument on Permitted Uses in Copyright Law” (hereinafter, the Instrument) was published with open access. The Instrument is the outcome of an international academic initiative that brought together around twenty outstanding copyright experts from various countries around the world. The group of experts convened its first meeting in…
To ensure you don’t miss out on interesting IP law developments reported on our other IP blogs, we will, on a regular basis, provide you with an overview of the top 3 most-read posts from each of our IP law blogs. Here are the top posts from December, January and February. Top 3 Kluwer Copyright…
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…
Our daily life is studded with hints unveiling how the Internet is becoming a society within our society. From the terms and conditions we subscribe to in order to use it, to consolidated practices in the online world, the Internet mostly functions according to its own rules, which either abide by or clash with legal…
Summary The IPEC has held than an employee produced software in the course of his employment, despite his claims he did most of his work in his own time, at home, and on a personal computer. In the decision, Penhallurick v MD5 Limited [2021] EWHC 293 (IPEC), Hacon J suggested that such factors did not…
By disallowing multiple statutory damages awards under the Copyright Act, the Ninth Circuit could cause future plaintiffs under similar facts to sue each defendant separately. In a suit—in which a jury returned a verdict of $480,000 against five defendants in the textile industry—involving infringement of a single copyrighted fabric design, the U.S. Court of Appeals…
On 14 January 2021, Advocate General (AG) Szpunar delivered his Opinion in Case C‑762/19, SIA ‘CV-Online Latvia’ v SIA ‘Melons’, a further case relating to the database sui generis right. The application of the sui generis right to the activity of search engines was the main question raised in this case. Specifically, a specialist search…
Will the text and data mining (TDM) exceptions, introduced in arts 3 and 4 of the EU Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (DSM Directive) and currently being implemented by the EU Member States, serve its purpose of promoting the development of AI technologies or will they remain (another) set of meaningless black…
