On 29 July the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) finally rendered its long-awaited judgment in Case C-476/17, Pelham v Hütter and Schneider-Esleben., together with its judgments on two other cases: Case C-516/17, Spiegel Online GmbH v Volker Beck and Case C-469/17, Funke Medien NRW GmbH v Bundesrepublik Deutschland. All three cases are…
Part I of this blogpost discussed the first paragraph of Article 17(7) DSM Directive, according to which the cooperation between online content sharing service providers (OCSSPs) and rightholders cannot render unavailable uploaded content which does not infringe copyright or neighbouring rights. Part II addresses the second paragraph of Article 17(7) which is instead addressed at…
Blockchain is certainly a hot topic. For creative industries, Blockchain has the potential to improve licensing of rights as well as tracking of infringements. It also has potential in arts funding. Some artists and art organizations have already tried to tokenize art works and artists in order to attract crowd funding. The online platform Maecenas…
Article 17 of the adopted DSM Directive requires that so-called online content-sharing service providers (OCSSPs) either obtain use licenses from rightholders or, failing that, enforce copyright ex ante by preventing uploads. At the same time, according to Article 17(7) any agreements between rightholders and OCSSPs cannot affect the availability of content created under the limitations,…
In a highly unusual move, the Court of Appeal has set aside the first instance judgment in Nicholas Martin v Julia Kogan [2017] EWHC 2927 and ordered that a new trial take place in the IPEC, but this time before a different judge. In its judgment, Julia Kogan v Nicholas Martin & others, [2019] EWCA…
Although the defendant had allegedly illegally used the claimant’s software on only three days (over a period of two months), the court found it justifiable to award monetary damages in an amount equal to the standard yearly licence and maintenance fees for this software. The court held that this was the “normal” fee the defendant…
The French Supreme Court sets out, for the first time since the ECJ Deckmyn case of 2014, the criteria for the copyright exception for parody. Case date: 22 May 2019 Case number: 18-12718 Court: Court of Cassation of France A full summary of this case has been published on Kluwer IP Law.
Exceptions to hearsay rule did not apply to songwriters’ evidence of copying against members of rock band who allegedly copied the songwriters’ bass riff when creating the band’s own song. Two songwriters who authored the song “Ain’t That a Lot of Love” failed to provide admissible evidence of direct copying or substantial similarity to survive…
European Court of Justice decisions of July 29, 2019 (C-469/17 and C-516/17) The abuse of copyright as a “legal weapon” to suppress press reports is not a new development – for decades authors and rightholders have used their exclusive rights to prevent the publication of unpleasant information. The situation in practice The situation is always…
CREATe Symposium: Glasgow, 8th-10th October 2019 CREATe, the UK Copyright & Creative Economy Centre at the University of Glasgow, is organising three days of events, public lectures and workshops (the CREATe Symposium 2019) to mark the start of a number of ambitious projects (as well as the continuation of others!) that will occupy us for the…
