Four years have passed since the adoption of Directive 2014/26/EU on collective management of copyright and related rights. The Directive aimed to provide a remedy for certain of the pathogenies of collective management organisations (CMOs), which have been often denounced for their lack of transparency and abusive practices, but also came as a response to…
The global research community generates over 1.5 million new scholarly articles per year. Text and data mining (TDM) enables individuals to analyse such large amounts of data, to categorise that data, and to unravel the underlying patterns in order to attain new knowledge, and to create new databases. That being said, utilisation of TDM in…
On 27 February 2018, the European Union (EU) adopted the EU geo-blocking regulation (the Regulation), which will enter into force by the end of the year. The Regulation prohibits unjustified geo-blocking, and other forms of discrimination, based on customers’ nationality, place of residence, or place of establishment. The Regulation is particularly relevant to all businesses…
The Spanish court has recently given judgment in proceedings brought by various audiovisual producers belonging to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), against a number of telecommunications companies who provide Internet access. The proceedings were aimed at having the latter take measures to block Internet access to certain websites that were making protected audiovisual…
On 14 September 2016, a proposal for a Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market saw the light of day. The proposal is part of the EU copyright reform package, which has as its objective to modernise EU Copyright rules for the digital age, thereby attaining the objectives set out earlier in the Digital…
Decision of the German Bundesgerichtshof of September 21, 2017, file no. I ZR 11/16: “Vorschaubilder III” (“Thumbnails III”). In this decision, the Bundesgerichtshof (“BGH”) applies the latest CJEU case law on liability for linking, namely Svensson (C-466/12), GS Media (C-160/15), Filmspeler (C-527/15) and BREIN/Ziggo (C-610/15) to search engines and in particular to Google’s picture search….
An artist’s illustration of two dolphins crossing underwater was an idea that was found first in nature and was not protectable under copyright law, the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco has held. The court affirmed a district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of another artist who created a painting with a…
The Court of Appeal of Lisbon confirmed that it is mandatory to have a licence and to pay for performing broadcast works to clients via TV sets in hotel rooms as this constitutes communication of the works to the public. Case date: 16 May 2017 Case number: 197/14.2YHLSB.L1-7 Court: Court of Appeal of Lisbon A full summary of…
The Court of Appeal of Lisbon held that the violation of the right to publish a work post mortem, against the will of the author or of his/her heirs, is a serious and irreparable infringement of the author’s moral rights and provides sufficient justification to order an interim injunction. Case date: 2 May 2017 Case number: 348/16.2YHLSB.L1-1…
The draft Brexit Withdrawal Agreement between the EU and the UK, which was published by the European Commission on 28 February 2018, provides for continued protection in the UK of registered or granted IP rights. According to article 50 (1) of the draft agreement, the holder of a EU trade mark, design or plant variety right,…
