ORF/Facebook – First follow up ruling after CJEU C18/18 – Glawischnig/Facebook First, a little bit of history. Back in 2016, a Facebook post containing an article with a photograph of the former Austrian politician Eva Glawischnig gave rise to a landmark decision against Facebook. Alongside a photo of Ms Glawischnig, she was referred to as,…
Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly pervading our lives. AI-based face recognition technology has been employed in surveillance and policing. In medicine, AI is already diagnosing various diseases, including skin cancer. Courts have been using AI solutions to determine sentences, while hiring companies use AI to attract applicants and to predict a candidate’s fit. When shopping…
German Federal Supreme Court (Bundesgerichtshof) decisions of April 30, 2020 ( I ZR 139/15 and I ZR 228/15) Recently, the German Federal Supreme Court issued press releases in two cases which are of fundamental importance for the relationship between copyright and conflicting fundamental rights. Specifically, the two cases, Funke Medien (also known as “Afghanistan Papiere”) and Spiegel…
Very few institutions were prepared for the transition to distance learning. Although most teachers would have been familiar with online learning platforms and communication services, the swift move to Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) took most universities by surprise. Some universities were able to rely on licensed software, repurposed to instruct students, and provide their staff…
There are not many surprises in the just released Copyright Office Section 512 Study. On virtually every issue about which the copyright industry had complained for the last two decades regarding the notice and takedown regime first established by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in 1998, now codified in 17 U.S.C. § 512—from its…
One of the most awaited copyright rulings of 2019 – Nederlands Uitgeversverbond and Groep Algemene Uitgevers v Tom Kabinet Internet BV and Others (C-263/18), on the admissibility of digital exhaustion under the InfoSoc Directive – came out on 19 December, lost in the decisions galore issued by the CJEU the last working day before the…
Although the time limit for the claim that Phil Everly was a co-author would begin running when Phil’s authorship was repudiated by Don Everly, factual issues precluded summary judgment on the issue. A claim brought by the estate and children of deceased pop musician Phil Everly—one of the famous Everly Brothers—asserting that Phil was a…
Like the very similar Patent Remedy Act previously invalidated by the Court, the Copyright Remedy Clarification Act failed to abrogate States’ sovereign immunity. Congress lacked the authority to abrogate the States’ immunity from copyright infringement suits through enactment of the Copyright Remedy Clarification Act of 1990 (CRCA), a unanimous Supreme Court has held. Writing on…
Yesterday the German Federal Supreme Court (Bundesgerichtshof) published its rulings on three long-standing copyright disputes involving fundamental rights. All three cases had been the subject of preliminary rulings by the CJEU last year, case C‑469/17 (Funke Medien), case C‑516/17 (Spiegel Online) and case C‑476/17 (Pelham). In the two press freedom-related cases, the German Federal Supreme…
Although the claims failed, the district court did not abuse its discretion in rejecting the defendants’ request for a fee award because the plaintiff’s positions were not objectively unreasonable. The U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco has affirmed district court orders granting summary judgment in favor of a swimming pool builder and remodeler that…
