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…

The turbulent relationship between copyright law and the freedoms of information and expression lies at the heart of the recent decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in the case Spiegel Online GmbH v Volker Beck (C 516/17). Part I of this blogpost critically overviewed the CJEU’s main principles of analysis…

On 10 January 2019, the Advocate General (AG) Szpunar delivered his opinion in the case Spiegel Online GmbH v Volker Beck (C 516/17). The case is part of a trilogy of preliminary references raised by the German courts focusing on copyright exceptions and the interaction of copyright law with fundamental rights (Pelham, C‑476/17 and Funke…

The English High Court found that an App which allows users to upload, share and view 8 second clips of cricket matches and other sporting events (on a near-live basis) infringed the copyright in the television broadcasts of those matches, and the films made during the course of the production of those broadcasts. England And…

Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with an earlier decision by the Slovak Supreme Court about unauthorised use of a famous Tank Man picture in the Slovak media. The case has now hit the Slovak Constitutional Court, thus providing it with the first ever opportunity to discuss the interface of copyright and freedom…