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 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 [...]
“The law does not allow for additional protection of the maker of a work against so-called slavish imitation of a style or of elements of style.”
Supreme Court of the Netherlands, 29 March 2013 (Duijsens/Broeren).
Although the legal concept of coat-tail riding is usually associated with trademark law, it is certainly not unfamiliar to copyright law. But whereas in trademark law the mere association with a popular brand is used to sell the non-identical brand of the coat-tail rider, in copyright law it is often the style of an artist or a work , that is used as a means to stay as close to these work(s) without literally imitating them.
Unfortunately for those whose coat-tails are r [...]
ECHR Decision of the ECtHR (5th section) of 19 February 2013. Case of Fredrik Neij and Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi (The Pirate Bay) v. Sweden, Appl. nr. 40397/12.
By Dirk Voorhoof, Ghent University and Inger Høedt-Rasmussen, Copenhagen Business School.
The criminal conviction of the co-founders of The Pirate Bay for infringement of copyright does not violate Article 10 ECHR.
Only a few weeks after the Strasbourg Court’s judgment in the case of Ashby Donald and others v. France (ECtHR 10 January 2013, see our blogs on the KluwerCopyrightBlog and the ECHR-Blog ) the Court has decided a new case of conflicting rights between copyright and freedom of expression.
The case concerned the complaint b [...]
Last week, the European Court of Justice ruled in a preliminary ruling that live streaming of television channels is a ‘communication to the public’ within the meaning of the EU Copyright Directive (Directive 2001/29). Therefore, the website TVCatchup, a free streaming service that offers over fifty channels of UK television on computers, smartphones and other devices connected to the internet, infringes the copyrights of commercial television broadcaster ITV.
To communicate protected works to the public under the Copyright Directive, permission of the right holder is needed. According to TVCatchup, only users with a valid television license are allowed to subscribe to its service. As users [...]
The European Copyright Society, a group of prominent European scholars, today issued an opinion on the Svensson case (Case C-466/12), which is currently before the European Court of Justice. The case, which was referred to the Court by the Swedish Court of Appeal (Svea hovrätt) on 18 October 2012, raises the important question whether setting a hyperlink to a copyright protected work amounts to ‘communication to the public’ within the meaning of Article 3(1) of the Information Society Directive.
In a detailed, 17-page opinion the European Copyright Society argues that the answer to this question should be a resounding no. According to the Society, “The importance of this particular re [...]
“In the absence of any claim from the phonogram producer, or its assigns, the natural or legal person who publicly, peacefully and unambiguously exploits recordings, is deemed to be the holder of the rights in the recordings as regards third parties against whom an infringement case is brought.”
The French Intellectual Property Code deals with copyright and neighbouring rights separately. As regards copyright, the French case law has long established a presumption of ownership to facilitate infringement proceedings initiated by natural or legal persons who exploit copyrighted works against alleged infringers.
On the grounds of article L.113-5 of the Intellectual Property Code, which provides [...]
The CJEU states that Article 15(6) of Directive 2010/13/EU on short news reports is compatible with Articles 16 and 17 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.
On 22 January 2013 the Court of Justice of the European Union handed down a decision on the compatibility of Article 15(6) of Directive 2010/13/EU – according to which the compensation that holders of exclusive broadcasting rights are entitled to seek for granting other broadcasters the right to access events of high interest to the public for the purpose of short news reports «shall not exceed the additional costs directly incurred in providing access» – is compatible with Articles 16 and 17 of the Charter of [...]
On 15 January 2013, the French Constitutional Council declared unconstitutional Article 6, paragraph II, of the law on private copying levy (Law No. 2011-1898).
This provision retroactively validated private copying levies that had been paid or claimed based on rates annulled by the French Council of State. To fully understand the ruling of the Constitutional Council, it is necessary to explain the background of this provision.
Back in 2008, the Private Copying Commission (Commission pour la rémunération de la copie privée) set new levy rates in its Decision No. 11. On 17 June 2011, the Council of State annulled that decision on the grounds that products acquired by professionals for a pu [...]
