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 [...]

“This decision is significant insofar as it should impact the legislative process regarding the Proposed Directive “on collective management of copyright and related rights and multi-territorial licensing of rights in musical works for online uses.”

On April 12, 2013, the General Court of the European Union ended a 5 year wait and delivered its judgement in Case T–442/08 CISAC v. European Commission (CISAC 2013), as well as in twenty-two other related cases involving a like number of European collecting societies (see Press release No 43/13). In it the Court partially annulled the Commission’s decision of July 16, 2008 (CISAC 2008). This blog post will focus on the CISAC 2013 decision [...]

“The road to Marrakesh is open but is not paved with roses and the outcome of the negotiations is awaited with both hope and reservations. “

While some statistics demonstrate that only about 5% of all published books are available in accessible formats for print disabled people globally, 2013 promises to be a landmark year in the combat against this scarcity of reading sources for visually impaired people. A scarcity that is often referred to as ‘book famine’.

On April, 20, 2013 the Informal Session and Special Session of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) is expected to have prepared a revised and maybe final version of the draft text of a Treaty to F [...]

“This agreement covers all types of videos broadcasted by YouTube.”

The French collecting society SACEM, which manages the rights of authors and publishers of musical works, announced, on 3 April 2013, that it has entered into a new agreement with YouTube and Universal Music Publishing International (UMPI). This agreement defines the conditions of use of SACEM’s repertoire and UMPI’s Anglo-American repertoire in videos broadcasted by YouTube in 127 countries across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. The deal, however, does not include the United States. This agreement, which commences on 1 January 2013, covers all types of videos broadcasted by YouTube, including user-generated c [...]

“The viewer will not experience it as real and will even consider it to be weird, amateurish or even ridiculous.”

In a case about the use of the ‘house style’ of the Dutch police, the summary proceedings judge  District Court Amsterdam ruled this week that the Dutch State has to give permission to the producer of the television series ‘Doctor Tinus’ for the use of the police-logo, the police car-striping  and  other elements of the  house style of the Dutch police.

In this case, the Dutch State took the position that the State doesn’t  have to give permission for the usage of elements of the ‘police house style’ and the other features of the police in fictional movies or s [...]