Debate on AI and IP continues Copyright and Artificial Intelligence (AI) or, more specifically, Machine Learning (ML) has become a hotly debated topic. It has attracted attention not only among academics but also increasingly among policy makers. The US government ran a consultation on AI and IP a few years ago. The UK government has…

We are happy to announce that going forward we will be publishing an annual review of the case law of the German Bundesgerichtshof, authored by Jan Bernd Nordemnann (NORDEMANN law firm). In order to bring readers up to date on earlier developments, over the next few days we will be republishing in four parts an…

On 24 April 2020, the Federal Court of Australia handed down a decision in the case Boomerang Investments Pty Ltd v Padgett (Liability) [2020] FCA 535 which concerned the copying of substantial parts of the iconic Australian pop-hit classic ‘Love is in the air’ by the US band, Glass Candy, and by the French airline…

German Federal Supreme Court’s decisions of 21 February 2019 (ref.: I ZR 98/17, I ZR 99/17 and I ZR 15/18) Protection of moral rights in Germany, in particular the right to prohibit distortion of the work Moral rights derived from copyright are not harmonized within the European Union. Rather, every EU member state has developed…

On 10 January 2019, the Advocate General (AG) Szpunar delivered his opinion in the case Spiegel Online GmbH v Volker Beck (C 516/17).  Part I of this blogpost explored the AG’s stance in relation to the degree of latitude left to Member States when implementing copyright exceptions and the ambit of the news reporting exception…

In May, the ECS held their annual summit in Brussels, under the title “EU copyright, quo vadis? From the EU copyright package to the challenges of Artificial Intelligence.” The summit covered many of the hot topics on today’s copyright agenda, including the proposed directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. This post, however, focuses…

The Court of Appeal of Lisbon held that the violation of the right to publish a work post mortem, against the will of the author or of his/her heirs, is a serious and irreparable infringement of the author’s moral rights and provides sufficient justification to order an interim injunction. Case date: 2 May 2017 Case number: 348/16.2YHLSB.L1-1…

In this case, the Supreme Court of Estonia analyses the concept of the “hypothetical licence fee” under the Estonian Copyright Act, in accordance with Article 13(1)b) of the EU Enforcement Directive. The court is of the opinion that the “hypothetical licence fee” must be calculated based on the real value of the right of use…

A photographer took a portrait of a lawyer, who subsequently published the portrait in numerous newspaper articles. A lawsuit was initiated by an association enforcing the rights of the photographer. The photographer had sent the picture to the lawyer in JPEG-format. In the IPTC-metadata of the file (thus data which contain information about other data),…

A full report of this case has been published on Kluwer IP Law. The Supreme Court held that in order to decide whether there has been an infringement of the personality rights of an architect by modifications to his work, it is necessary to establish the degree of intensity of relationship between the architect and…