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 [...]
The usefulness of a computer program is not sufficient to characterise the originality of the program.
There is nothing more subjective, and often arbitrary and unfair, than the notion on which copyright protection is based: originality. Under French law, the Intellectual Property Code protects “the rights of authors in all works of the mind, whatever their kind, form of expression, merit or purpose” (article L.112-1), without giving a definition of originality. French case law has defined originality as the expression of the personality of the author. European case law validated the French conception of originality, in particular in Infopaq and in Painer (para. 88: “As stated in recita [...]
Supreme Court of the Netherlands, 23 November 2012, Foundation for Public Lending vs. Association of Public Libraries.
Lending right. According to the Supreme Court of The Netherlands there is no legal obligation to pay a separate remuneration for a renewal of a library book loan and the extension of the due date. Plaintiff, the Foundation for Public Lending, a collective society, sued the Association of Public Libraries and argued that the refusal to collect such a separate payment was contrary to the three-step test.
The Supreme Court ruled that the payment of remuneration based on art. 15g of the Dutch Copyright Act (DCA) is not to be determined by the number factual loans [...]
“He decides to write an alternative super hero tale, and uses his partner Thomas’ identity. So the real Thomas turns into the fictive super hero in the book.”
This is a story that started out with two partners doing art related projects together. One day one of them, Claus Beck-Nielsen, decides to write a book about a man who wants to save America from the spiral of descending moral and growing evilness, which according to his mind had evolved among the Americans. He decides to write an alternative super hero tale, and uses his partner Thomas ’ identity (Thomas Altheimer , born Thomas Skade-Rasmussen Strøbech, a Danish artist), describing his real family, wife job, incidents etc [...]
In its recent judgement in the Auto24.ee-case, the Estonian Supreme Court established that an authors’ agreement for assigning economical copyrights is deemed to be signed when the user of database accepts the general conditions imposed by the database owner.
According to Article 49(1) of the Estonian Copyright Act though, an author’s contract shall be entered into in writing. The grant of a non-exclusive licence may also be made in a format which can be reproduced in writing. The referred Article 49(1) is imperative.
The “Auto24″ database, owned by the plaintiff AS Sanoma Baltics, contains sales advertisements of motor vehicles that are accompanied with corresponding photos made by the us [...]
“The judgment casts a spotlight on a distinct feature of collective rights management in Germany and the difficulties that may ensue for creators and users of musical creations who want to license such material under an alternative licensing scheme.”
The case that came before the Local Court Frankfurt/Main concerned a dispute between the German Society for musical performing and mechanical reproduction rights (Gesellschaft für musikalische Aufführungs- und mechanische Vervielfältigungsrechte, GEMA) and a song contest organiser (defendant). In the course of a music contest, entrants were asked to submit a song through the defendant’s website and permit for the song to being exploited ( [...]
“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 [...]
