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 [...]

“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 [...]

“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 [...]

“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 French Supreme Court (“Cour de Cassation”) has upheld, in a ruling of 25 September 2012, a judgment of the Court of Appeal of Paris condemning Radioblog and its managing directors to the payment of damages amounting to over €1 million, in addition to a suspended prison sentence of nine months and a €10,000 fine.

The case is interesting for two reasons: the gigantic amount of damages and the application, for the first time, of new provisions of the French Intellectual Property Code condemning the provision of software applications intended to be used for infringing copyright.

The facts are the following: the website Radioblog provided a software called ‘RadioBlogClub’ to Internet user [...]

“The ECJ does not go as far as the Advocate General, and observes that given the ubiquitous nature of the content of a website, the mere fact that the website is accessible in a national territory is not sufficient to consider that the operator of that site is performing an act of re-utilisation caught by the national law.”

On 18 October 2012, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) rendered its judgment in Football Dataco II (C-173/11), in which it ruled that data is re-utilised in a Member State, the meaning of Article 7 of the Directive 96/9, if there is evidence that the alleged infringer intended to target members of the public in that territory.

The Court of Appeal of England and Wale [...]

On January 5, 2011, representatives of ACAPOR (a Portuguese association representing commercial retailers of cultural and entertainment works), wearing t-shirts with the slogans “piracy is illegal” and “1000 complaints per month”, filed a petition with the Prosecutor General’s Office (“PGO”) giving notice of the practice of 1000 acts of alleged usurpation of authors’ rights via peer-to-peer (“p2p”) networks by unknown individuals. Said petition was supplemented in April 2011, with notice of a further 1.000 acts.

Following an Opinion by the PGO (“PGO Opinion”), the Department of Investigation and Penal Action (“DIAP”) of Lisbon decided not to file any criminal char [...]

On July 11 the European Commission published its first official draft of the Proposal for a Directive “on collective management of copyright and related rights and multi-territorial licensing of rights in musical works for online uses in the internal market” (the “Proposal”). This blog post is Part II of an analysis of the Proposal. Part I addressed its background, overview, and looked at its general rules on subject matter, scope and Collective Management Organizations (“CMOs”). This Part II discusses multi-territorial licensing (“MTL”) and enforcement measures.

MTL of musical works to author’s CMOs

Title III of the draft Directive constitutes an “absolute novelty from a [...]

“A generalised principle of the “targeted” country might well become a recognised point of attachment in copyright conflicts of laws, at least in cases where such target jurisdictions can clearly be identified.”

The distribution of industrial products protected by copyright law can amount to a criminal offence as a violation of the distribution right. In CJEU, 21 June 2012, case C 5/11 (Donner), the CJEU clarified the interface between European law and national criminal sanctions in case such products are protected in the country of export but not in the originating country. The CJEU took the view that European legislation does not stand in the way of applying criminal law provisions c [...]

“The Radio Company cannot be declared guilty for breach of copyright (illegal use of musical works), although no written agreement has been concluded. In Latvia, criteria for stipulation of the amount of remuneration are not given in the Copyright Law.”

In 2006 the Autortiesību un komunicēšanās konsultāciju aģentūra / Latvijas Autoru apvienība, the Copyright and Communication Consulting Agency/Latvian Authors Association), also know in Latvia with its abbreviation – “AKKA/LAA” (further: Collective Rights Management Organization) brought a claim against one Radio Company in Latvia asking the court to rule that the Radio Company has violated copyright law in using musical works [...]