copyright

Posted in censorship, copyright, EU, expropriation, human rights, international private law

A Copyright Story of An Infamous Book
The New Years Eve’s fireworks again announced enlargement of our public domain. Works of Malcom X, T.S.Eliot, Winston Churchill became copyright-free, at least in some countries. The popular media reported extensively on bittersweet coocurrence of Anne Frank’s and Adolf Hitler’s copyright expiration (again, not world-wide). With a notable exception of Der
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Posted in Art. 11 EnforD, Art. 8(3) InfoSoc, blocking, civil procedural law, CJEU, copyright, injunctions, website blocking

Austrian Supreme Court Confirms Open-Ended Website Blocking Injunctions [UPC Telekabel Wien]
Last Thursday, the Austrian Supreme Court (OGH) issued the decision (OGH, 4 Ob 71/14s) in the proceedings that gave rise to the UPC Telekabel C-314/12 reference before the Court of Justice of the European Union. OGH confirmed the lower court decision, which granted an open-ended website blocking injunction against the biggest Austrian ISP. Although the
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Posted in CJEU, communication to the public, copyright, linking

CJEU: Hyperlinks Are Copyright Free. Are They Really?
Highly awaited Svensson C-466/12 ruling of the CJEU is now available online. It will be most likely positively received by the European media. And probably rightly so. Despite this, however, I can not help to (preliminary) question two basic issues in the ruling: Assumption of the authorized (source) content; CJEU carries out the entire analysis
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Posted in copyright, exceptions, extended collective licensing, fair use, Google Books, US

Google Books Decision – The Second Best Outcome?
Judge Denny Chin’s Google Books ruling sparked a considerable amount of welcome reaction. It is submitted that everybody, not just Google, will now greatly benefit from broader fair use defence, that it is a “huge victory for online innovation” and a “big win for libraries and researchers”. But is the decision really the first best
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Posted in Art. 5(3), conflicts of laws, copyright, jurisdiction

CJEU Receives a New Case on Online Copyright Infringement & Jurisdiction
The UK IPO reports a new interesting preliminary reference on cross border jurisdiction in copyright law before the Court of Justice of the EU – Hejduk C-441/13. As Pinckley C-170/12 case is very likely to be rejected by the CJEU due to speculation of referring French court, it is good to know that similar questions
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Posted in Art. 8(1) EnforD, Art. 8(3) InfoSoc, copyright, in rem injunctions, innocent parties injunctions, Pharma Norwich order, privacy

Are Banks Required to Disclose the Indentity of their Customers to Copyright Holders?
FutureOfCopyright reports very interesting recent Dutch copyright case – BREIN v. ING (Case No. C/13/539327). Local anti-piracy group BREIN sued well known bank and insurance company, ING, for disclosure of identity and bank transfers of one of it’s customers, who is a domain name holder of a website (largest Usenet community in the Netherlands with
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Posted in CJEU, communication to the public, copyright, EU, webstreaming

Retransmission by Internet Stream, CJEU Decides ITV Broadcasting
Television broadcasters may prohibit the retransmission of their programmes by another company via the internet, decided CJEU today in a British reference ITV Broadcasting C-607/11. Defendant in the British proceedings, TVCatchup Ltd (‘TVC’), offers an internet television broadcasting service. This service permits its users to receive, via the internet, ‘live’ streams of free-to-air
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Posted in Art. 8(3) InfoSoc, CJEU, copyright, three-step test

IViR Has Some Numbers for CJEU
One of Huťko’s favorite European Internet law Institutes, Dutch IViR, recently published an interesting survey-based study on downloading and streaming from illegal sources in the Netherlands (including the effects of website blocking on consumers behaviour). Some of the findings might be really interesting for CJEU, who will be deciding two related cases this year. Namely:
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Posted in collective societies, copyright, CR, free movement

Czech Court Asks CJEU: Is Teritorrial Monopoly of Collecting Societies Compatible with Free Movement of Services?
After BSA C-393/09, another copyright preliminary reference from Czech courts is making it’s way to the Court of Justice of EU. This time, on exemptions to the ‘communication to the public’ right, conformity of the territorial monopoly of collecting societies with Union law and possibility of the Horizontal Direct Effect of InfoSoc directive. The new
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