As we enter a new year, we would like to take this opportunity to pass on our best wishes for 2016 to all of our readers, as well as reflect on developments in copyright over the past year. Last…
Recordings used by defendants Activision Blizzard, Inc., and Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. (collectively, Blizzard) of a former employee’s voice for a character in a video game constituted a “work…
The German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) has ruled on two cases concerning internet access providers’ obligation to block access to websites providing links to predominantly illegal content. In…
On November 13th the Dutch Supreme Court provided another chapter in the case of ISPs and blocking of the Pirate Bay (hereafter: TPB). It decided that the Court of Appeal had used an incorrect,…
Article 3(1) of Directive 2001/29/EC (the Infosoc Directive) must be interpreted as meaning that a broadcasting organisation does not carry out an act of “communication to the public” when it…
On October 29th 2015, the Court of Justice of the European Union delivered its judgment in the case C‑490/14, Freistaat Bayern v Verlag Esterbauer GmbH. The Court was called upon to clarify the…
The case of Svensson Retriever has shown that a hyperlink to a work freely available on a website accessible for all internet users is not a new communication to the public in the sense of Article 3…
The French Supreme Court (‘Cour de cassation’) has caused a stir in France (15 May 2015, No 13-27391), by quashing a judgment of the Court of Appeal of Paris for breaching Article 10-2 of the…
Readers of this blog are familiar (or should I say fed up?) with the piecemeal legal framework of EU copyright. With nine directives in the field of copyright alone (plus one on enforcement), the…
