EU

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 ACTA, Art. 11 EnforD, Art. 8(3) InfoSoc, CETA, disconnecting injunctions, EU, intermediaries, safe harbours

#CETA: Should Canadian Internet Intermediaries Worry?
The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) is a proposed free trade agreement between Canada and the European Union. It is yet another alphabet soup that was cooked by our dear policy makers without first asking the public if it is hungry for any change of intellectual property protection/enforcement. As most of the other alphabet
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Posted in CJEU, data protection, EU, free speech, freedom of expression, privacy, right to be forgotten

Should We Centralize the Right to be Forgotten Clearing House?
Being in Silicon Valley during the time when the honourable Court of Justice of the European Union “cracks” its epic right to be forgotten ruling, is a very interesting social experience. Suddenly, the European part of you receives a strange lot of attention among tech folks in all the small talks. No wonder.
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Posted in Art. 8(3) InfoSoc, disconnecting injunctions, EU, in rem injunctions, innocent parties injunctions, internet access

Spanish Court Issued The First Disconnecting Injunction Against a Single Access Provider
A good friend, Miquel Peguera from Spanish Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, just reported what is probably the first private litigation, where an access provider was sued to disconnect its subscribers from the Internet. Although some Nordic countries already earlier reported cases where access providers were sued to disconnect different providers of allegedly infringing services, Promusicae
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Posted in Art. 11 EnforD, Art. 8(3) InfoSoc, CJEU, EU, in rem injunctions, innocent parties injunctions

AG: Website Blocking Is Compatible With The Union Law
Advocate General Pedro Cruz Villalón just published his opinion in UPC Telekabel Wien C‑314/12 case. He concludes that in principle website blocking is permissible injunction against an innocent intermediary. Because the opinion is not yet available in English, I summarize below only some points, that I found to be the most important: § 59: the
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Posted in Art. 5(3), CJEU, conflicts of laws, EU, intellectual property, jurisdiction

Is Pinckney Dangerous Law?
I wanted to post this comment since CJEU in October this year handed its perplexing Pinckney C-170/12 ruling. When this Thursday Advocate General Jääskinen published its opinion in Coty Prestige C-360/12, I felt obliged to go back to its confusing language and arguments and point out why Pinckney is a bad law. My regular readers
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Posted in CJEU, data protection, EU, personal data, personality rights

Does Use of CCTVs to Protect Your Home From Offenders Fall Outside of EU Data Protection Laws?
This is how we could rephrase a new preliminary reference by the Czech Administrative Supreme Court.  Journalist and former publisher of local newspapers Mr. Ryneš had persisting problems with unknown offenders who attacked him six times and several times damaged his house. Czech Police never found out who they were. Mr. Ryneš thus decided to
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