“The BGH thus insinuates that framing may be a yet “unnamed right of exploitation” within the scope of Art. 15(2) Copyright Act.”

On 16th May 2013 the first Senate of the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH), delivered its judgment in another case revolving around the issue of hyperlinking or framing. If one had hoped for a final decision to put the matter to rest, one could only be disappointed, since the BGH referred the case for a preliminary ruling to the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The reference to the ECJ concerns the question whether a website operator who embeds copyright protected videos in his website that is publicly available via another website (“framing”) infring [...]

“The Cabinet of Ministers has failed to assess impact of technology development onto blank tapes and equipment to be used for reproduction and thus imposable with blank tape levy.” (Judgement Constitutional Court, 14.3).

Last year, the Satversmes tiesa, the Constitutional Court of Latvia, had to deal with the first copyright case since its establishment in 1996. The importance of the case, the Blank Tape Levy-case, lies especially in the dogmatic assessment of copyright in the light and the frame of the Constitution of Latvia (the Satversme). Article 113 of the constitution states that the State shall protect copyright.

The complainants were four of the five collective management organizatio [...]

“The Supreme Court considers that the participants in the reality TV program had no role to play and that there was no text. They were simply asked to be themselves and express their reactions to the situations they faced. The artificial nature of these situations was not enough to give them the quality of actors.”

L’Ile de la Tentation is the French version of the American reality television program Temptation Island, in which couples agree to live on an exotic island with a group of singles of the opposite sex, in order to test the strength of their relationships.

53 participants in this television series applied to the Labour Court on the grounds that the “set of rules applicable to [...]

“The law of the country where protection is sought governs all matters relating to the exercise and enjoyment of copyright, including the determination of the rights holder.”

Article 5(2) of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works provides that “The enjoyment and the exercise of these rights shall not be subject to any formality; such enjoyment and such exercise shall be independent of the existence of protection in the country of origin of the work. Consequently, apart from the provisions of this Convention, the extent of protection, as well as the means of redress afforded to the author to protect his rights, shall be governed exclusively by the laws of [...]

In a relatively recent judgement in a criminal case, the Supreme Court of Estonia ruled that that the terms  ‘trade scale’ and  ‘commercial scale’ are not synonymous. The concept ‘commercial scale’ in criminal law cannot be interpreted in such a broad sense as the concept ‘trade scale’. 

A. Gubinski allegedly committed a copyright infringement, therewith violating section 222″1 of the Estonian Penal Code. Gubinski argued that did not commit a crime since (i) it had not been proven that the files found in his computer could be regarded as a copyrightable computer program and (ii) that he did not gain profit as a result of possessing the computer program. The prosecutor argued that it was c [...]

“It is not the European Parliament that officially determines the scope of the negotiating mandate, although its position now can certainly give a sign regarding the political winds that await the TTIP agreement.”

The EU and the US have been holding talks on a trade agreement that goes by the name of Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Apparently, it is both parties’ intention to include a chapter on intellectual property, which has caused a lot of ACTA-related bells to ring. Regardless of the (de)merits of including an IP chapter in the TTIP, the specific mandate regarding copyright aspects is (still) unknown.

The Committee of International Trade of the European Par [...]

In a recent judgment, following the preliminary Infopaq-rulings of the European Court of Justice, the Danish Supreme Court ruled that extracts of newspaper articles comprising no more than 11 words can be works protected by copyright. The use of extracts that are the results of a process of data capture undertaken by the media analysis company Infopaq International A/S (now Infomedia) constitutes copyright infringement, unless prior consent from right holders has been obtained.

The judgement of the Danish Supreme Court is the outcome of an eight-year dispute between Infopaq and Danske Dagblades Forening (Danish Daily Newspapers Association). The core of the dispute concerned Infopaq’s righ [...]

“The Supreme Court puts an end to a French oddity and makes the business of music synchronisation safer. (…) The Supreme Court took the opportunity to settle two major issues in French neighbouring rights: (1) a collective management organisation may only take action for the defence of its own members; (2) the collective agreements entered into before the Act of 3 July 1985 granting neighbouring rights to performers, are still in force.”

The Franco-Belgian movie Podium, released in 2004, tells the story of a Claude François lookalike who prepares for a contest. Claude François, AKA ‘Cloclo’, was a famous French pop singer of the 60s and 70s. In order to use recordings from the 60s an [...]

“The most obvious one is the fact that, if enhanced cooperation is permitted in the area of creation of unitary titles, then a similar solution could be envisaged for copyright.”

Last month, the CJEU came to a decision in joined cases C-274/11 and C-295/11, where the claims of Spain and Italy against enhanced cooperation for the creation of a unitary patent were dismissed. Did this blogger just take the wrong exit on the IP interstate and arrived in patent city? Not really. While this is a patent decision, some of its splinters might indeed land in copyright town.

In a nutshell, 25 Member States of the EU decided to establish enhanced cooperation between them in the context of creating a [...]

“No need to wait for the ECJ, the Court replied.”

In Belgium, besides being a tort from a civil law perspective, a copyright infringement can also be a criminal offence, on the condition that it is done “with malicious or fraudulent intent”. When copyright infringements are committed by unknown perpetrators (which is quite common on the internet), it is usual to file a complaint with an examining magistrate who is endowed with specific criminal investigation powers.

This is what the producer of “Fait d’hiver” (an Academy award nominee short film) did after noticing that the movie had been entirely uploaded on YouTube and embedded in the pages of two websites, namely koreus.com and [...]