In this case the court took the position that the non-transfer of economic copyright in a draft building plan did not constitute a breach of the contract of services for designing a construction project if this condition had not been explicitly agreed between the parties. It followed that the transfer of economic copyright must be…
Good news for copyright aficionados who (like me) rather read their copyright law from hard copies than from screens. After a ten-year wait the second edition of Concise European Copyright Law (a.k.a. “Concise Copyright”) was finally published earlier this year. If you liked the ‘little blue book’ that first came out in 2006, you will…
Here at the Kluwer Copyright Blog we are thrilled to have had the opportunity to ask Felix Reda MEP a few questions on some very topical copyright law issues. We are very grateful to Felix for sparing time in his busy schedule to do the interview, and here’s what he had to say: 1. In…
On June 16, Advocate General (AG) Spuznar delivered his opinion in Case C‑174/15 Vereniging Openbare Bibliotheken v Stichting Leenrecht. The case emerged from a dispute between VOB, the association of Dutch public libraries, and a foundation entrusted with collecting the remuneration for lending which is due to authors. In VOB’s view, the lending of electronic…
In response to a reference from the Spanish Supreme Court, the CJEU held that Article 5(2)(b) of Directive 2001/29/EC must be interpreted as precluding a scheme for fair compensation for private copying like the Spanish system, which is financed from the General State Budget in such a way that it is not possible to ensure that…
The Supreme court of Bulgaria held that the term “unless agreed otherwise” in Art. 42 (2) of the Law on Copyright and Related Rights should be interpreted as meaning that the parties to an agreement commissioning the creation of a work can agree either in the commissioning agreement or in another agreement on specific terms…
BREXIT will obviously have an impact on some of the intellectual property regimes the UK will operate under in the post-EU world, but will it have a significant impact on the copyright regime in the UK? Copyright is probably the intellectual property right that is the least harmonised in the EU. There have been attempts…
The CJEU considered that where the operator of a rehabilitation centre installs television sets at its premises, to which it transmits a broadcast signal thereby enabling patients to view television programmes, and this affects the copyright and related rights of a wide range of interested parties, it must be determined whether such a situation constitutes…
In a judgment of 17 March 2016, the Cour de cassation, the French Supreme Court, ruled that the judicial courts are required to assess and award the remuneration for private copying in situations where one of the decisions of the Commission in charge of setting the fair compensation has been annulled. A full summary of…
The UK electorate’s vote to leave the European Union has been perceived as a bolt from the blue. After the initial shock, the potential legal and business implications of Brexit have been widely discussed. In the field of IP, the main concern has been to predict how UK IP business and law will be affected….
