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 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 [...]

“However, in none of the studied countries, e-lending activities rely on a statutory copyright or lending right exception.”

By Kelly Breemen and Vicky Breemen, Institute for Information Law, Amsterdam (IViR).

Public libraries in various countries are increasingly involved in e-lending practices. Thus far, these practices are largely based on contractual agreements between the parties concerned rather than on a copyright exception or limitation. But why would public libraries not be allowed to lend e-books under the same conditions that apply to physical books, that is, without prior authorization but against equitable remuneration?

In the context of plans for developing a national digita [...]

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 [...]

ECtHR (5th section), 10 January 2013, case of Ashby Donald and others v. France, Appl. nr. 36769/08.

By Dirk Voorhoof, Ghent University and Inger Høedt-Rasmussen, Copenhagen Business School.

“Although the European Court did not find a violation of Article 10 in the case of Ashby Donald and others v. France, the judgment in this case has definitely confirmed that copyright enforcement, restrictions on the use of copyright protected works and sanctions based on copyright law ultimately can be regarded as interferences with the right of freedom of expression and information.”

For the first time in a judgment on the merits, the European Court of Human Rights has clarified that a conviction base [...]

Breaking news. More than a year after Congress repealed the private copying levy, the Spanish Government agreed yesterday to begin paying taxes on blank media such as DVDs, CDs, pen drives and camera phones through a budget allotment.

The Ministry of Culture would be in charged of determining each year how much should be allotted to cover the excise tax, which would be introduced to compensate artists who saw their royalties shrink due to the ease of online file sharing and downloads.

In 2011, Congress repealed the law, which had been severely criticized by the European Union Court of Justice, who said it was not in line with EU legislation.

By paying the tax through budget allotments, the c [...]

Last week, the European Parliament approved the draft Directive on certain permitted uses of orphan works. The approval of the Council of Ministers is expected to occur shortly.

This is big news indeed, for it’s the first draft directive in the area of copyright law to make it this far in more than 10 years. It’s been commented and reported by many.

The proposed directive is striking in many respects. Most prominent is the virtually unanimous opinion that the directive ‘is a step in the right direction’, but that it ‘will not facilitate nor promote mass digitization and large-scale preservation of Europe’s vast cultural heritage’. This conjures up the image of the elephant giving birth to a [...]

By Raquel Xalabarder, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya

“This ruling is very good news for the recent doctrinal attempts to bring some flexibility in the way copyright laws are being interpreted and applied.  It is difficult to predict the impact that this ruling may have in successive case law, but it is certainly an important milestone in adding flexibility in the application of copyright laws within technologically changing contexts. “

On 3 April 2012, the Spanish Supreme Court issued a major ruling in favor of the Google search engine (including its “cache copy” service):  Sentencia n.172/2012, of 3 April 2012, Supreme Court, Civil Chamber.

After accepting that none of the statutory [...]

Literary works, photos, films and music and other items that constitute our common cultural heritage are stored in the collections of cultural institutions, such as publicly accessible libraries, museums and archives. Many of these items are still protected by copyright, but their right holders cannot be identified or located – i.e. the works are so-called “orphan works”. This leads to a situation where cultural institutions that strive to digitize and make the parts of their collections still “in copyright” available via the internet risk being sued for infringement if the rightholders should reappear. This may cause many cultural institutions to refrain from digitizing and making ava [...]