Tech Notes – Page 9 – IT/IP & Digital Services Act

Posted in Art. 11 EnforD, Art. 14 EcomD, Art. 8(3) InfoSoc, BGH, DE, hosting, Liability of ISPs

BGH on Liability of Rapidshare

BGH today according to its press release decided in Atari Europe v. Rapidshare, known also as “Alone in the dark” (BGH, I ZR 18/11, LG Düsseldorf – 12 O 40/09). The case concerns action brought by Atari Europe, the producer of well-known computer game “Alone in the dark”, against the file-hosting provider Rapidshare. As the

Posted in Art. 11 EnforD, Art. 8(3) InfoSoc, CJEU, EU, injunctions, ISP, website blocking

New CJEU Referral: Is Website Blocking OK with Union Law?

E-comm blog reports a new exciting Austrian referral (OGH decision) before CJEU, which deals with the question whether the Union law provides for website blocking injunctions against Access Providers. The case UPC Telekabel Wien C-314/12 is already listed on the Curia website and has a potential to solve a vast disagreement of EU courts on

Posted in CJEU, data retention, privacy

Digital Rights Ireland Case: CJEU vs. Data Retention

So after two years of waiting for the Irish preliminary reference concerning the constitutionality of the date retention directive, we finally got it. The case C-293/12 Digital Rights Ireland could be, lets hope, very positive landmark ruling in the field of privacy in the digital age. The filled questions are so far not published on

Posted in CJEU, conflicts of laws, copyright, international private law

CJEU: Pinckney Case Questions

As Kluwer Copyright blog already reported on the beginning of this month, French Cour de cassation filed several very interesting questions before the Court of Justice of EU in preliminary reference Pinckney C-170/12. UK IPO yesterday send to its subscribers this very helpful information, that also include complete version of the preliminary questions. BackgroundThe applicant

Posted in CJEU, DE, EU, international private law, personality rights

BGH Ruled in Martinez Case

German Federal Supreme Court (Bundesgerichtshof) yesterday decided the case, which was previously referred to the Court of Justice of the EU – known as eDate Advertising C-161/10 & C-509/09. The case sent from Germany – Olivier Martinez and Robert Martinez v MGN Limited C-161/10 (BGH, VI. ZR 217/08) – dealt with the very interesting questions

Posted in CJEU, computer programs, copyright, originality, reverse engineering

CJEU Decided in SAS v. WPL

This morning, CJEU rendered very important decision in SAS v. WPL C-406/10. It deals with following issues: Is functionality of a computer program and the programming language used in a computer program protected as a computer program? Is it possible to contractually restrict the reverse engineering? How to asses the copyright protection of the user

Posted in Auskunftsanspruch, CJEU, copyright, enforcement, personal data, privacy

CJEU: Bonnier Audio – Quite Disappointment

CJEU today rendered its highly awaited decision in Bonnier Audio C-164/10. Author of these lines is however *very very* disappointed by the outcome. It seems to me that the Court of Justice of European Union, does not realize its ‘constitutional role’ for the member states. The entire decision is pretty much just excerpts from the

Trade Mark Functions – New Chance for CJEU

British IPO just reported a new reference for prelimary ruling – Leidseplein Beheer B.V. and Hendrikus Jacobus Marinus De Vries v Red Bull GmbH and Red Bull Nederland B.V. C-65/12, which deals with following interesting question: Is Article 5(2) of Directive 89/104/EEC to be interpreted as meaning that there

Posted in copyright, events, Free Software

Budapest: Use of FLA outside of the Free Software Communities?

Next week, I will be having presentation “Use of FLA outside of the Free Software Communities?” at workshop “V 4 paradigm shift in copyright” in Budapest (see details). The talk will discuss following: The copyright law sometimes gives authors more rights than they actually want. Certain communities overcome this problem by developing standard legal documents

Posted in blocking, censorship, child pornography, EU

New Directive: Measures Against Websites Disseminating Child Pornography

Huťko just bumped to the new Directive 2011/92/EU of 13 December 2011 on combating the sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children and child pornography. I recall the debate about this paragraph in the European parliament, but then I forgot to follow the discussion to the end. It looks like Member States shall bring into