The removal of SIAE’s repertoire from Meta’s social networks “This song is currently unavailable” or “The audio track in your reel is no longer available. You can replace the audio track once, which will also remove any original audio in your reel”. These are some of the messages appearing on Instagram or Facebook to users…

On 9 September 2022, Creative Commons issued their new FAQs on NFTs. This article provides a brief overview of the use of Creative Commons licensing in relation to NFTs based on the Creative Commons’ FAQ page linked above.   Creative Commons Licensing Most of you may well be familiar with the concept of Creative Commons…

  Running from 29 October 2021 to 7 January 2022, the “Artificial Intelligence and IP: copyright and patents” consultation formed the latest round in an ongoing national conversation between the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) and interested stakeholders (see here). The consultation sought views on the prospects for facilitating patent and copyright protections for “inventions…

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…

This post was first published on the new Kluwer Regulating for Globalization Blog. On September 14, 2017, the EU Court of Justice issued a preliminary ruling in Case C-177/16, Akka-Laa, on excessive pricing in the collective management of copyright licences. In 2013, the Latvian Competition Council fined Akka-Laa for abusing its dominance by imposing too…

Legal enforcement of open source software license violations, in particular violations of the General Public License (GPL), has been established in Germany for quite some time. Back in 2004, the Regional Court of Munich I granted an injunction confirming copyright infringement on the basis of a violation of the terms of the GPLv2 (judgment of…

Blockchain technology seems to be all the rage nowadays. In simple terms, blockchain enables parties who do not know or trust each other to maintain a common set of records without the need for a trusted third party intermediary. Bitcoin, the first major successful cryptocurrency, uses blockchain to keep track of the supply and flow…

The Supreme court of Bulgaria held that the term “unless agreed otherwise” in Art. 42 (2) of the Law on Copyright and Related Rights should be interpreted as meaning that the parties to an agreement commissioning the creation of a work can agree either in the commissioning agreement or in another agreement on specific terms…

The Dutch Copyright Contract Law entered into force on July 1st 2015. According to the legislator it aims to strengthen the position of the author and performer in exploitation agreements (see Explanatory Memorandum under 1, 1st paragraph), and will ideally lead to them receiving a fairer share of the profit from their work (see Memorandum…