EU copyright law roundup – fourth trimester of 2025

Now that 2026 year has started with full force, it makes sense to see where 2025 left us in terms of EU copyright law during its final months (October – December). During that period, we saw some important national judgments on the AI front. Equally, the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) was very active towards the end of year with several important judgments coming out. As usual, in this series we report on CJEU judgments, Advocate General (AG) Opinions (if any) and significant policy developments.

You can read the previous roundups here.

CJEU judgments and AG Opinions

Thuiskopie v HP, AG Opinion, C-496/24

On 2 October 2025, AG Szpunar delivered his opinion in this case concerning the communication to the public right and the private copying exception. Upon preliminary reference from the Dutch Supreme Court, the CJEU is asked to assess whether Article 5(2)(b) of the InfoSoc Directive would cover so-called “offline streaming copies”. The referred questions test the limits of the private copying exception in cases where “a subscriber to an on-demand streaming service can select any available works from the catalogue in order to make use of them offline”, where such copies of works are “encrypted in such a way that the subscriber can use the work, but typically only with the help of the service provider’s application; the user does not therefore have the capacity to dispose of the copy, or in other words cannot create further copies, change the location of the copy or arbitrarily transfer it to another device or medium”. This is a functionality that is familiar to most readers that subscribe to audiovisual or music streaming services, which allow them offline access to their subscribed content or part thereof.

The AG suggests that subscribers to these services do not make private copies within the meaning of Article 5(2)(b) where offline copies are accessed and enjoyed within an ecosystem that is fully controlled by the service provider. Furthermore, the AG recommends that the right of communication to the public under Article 3 of the InfoSoc Directivebe interpreted as meaning that the communication of works for offline use, as referred to in this case, is equivalent to the service provider making those works available to the public in such a way that members of the public may access them from a place and at a time individually chosen by them, within the meaning of that provision.

Mio/konektra, CJEU, C‑580/23 and C‑795/23

This long-awaited judgment was finally delivered on 4 December 2025. The case concerned the originality standard as well as questions of proof for copyright subsistence and infringement – all in the context of applied art. The Court held that there is no relationship of rule and exception between the protection for designs and that ensured by copyright. On the originality standard, the Court restated the need for free and creative choices and the reflection of the personality of the author, but also grappled with questions of whether factors relating to the creative process and the author’s intentions should be taken into account or whether only elements that are perceptible in the subject matter itself should matter. Here, the CJEU stresses the importance of the output and ruled that the creative process and the author’s intentions may be taken into account but only if these are expressed in the subject matter itself; the assessment cannot be based decisively on those elements. The CJEU also had its say on the reproduction right by ruling that for an infringement of it, it is necessary to determine whether creative elements of the protected work have been reproduced in a recognisable manner in the allegedly infringing subject matter.

For those interested in this matter, check our previous post on the European Copyright Society Opinion on CJEU MIO/konektra cases.

SACD and Others, CJEU, C-182/24

In a case referred from France, concerning the procedural rules on proving joint authorship as dictated by national law, the CJEU held that these rules should not be “unnecessarily complicated or costly, and that legislation must not make it impossible or excessively difficult for a single co-author or several co-authors to bring such an action”. The case concerned a situation where the 19 co-authors of the works at stake (films) had not been called on to participate in the proceedings. The applicants were unable to locate or identify all the co-authors or their successors in title, owing to the number of films concerned, the age of those films, the wide range of individuals involved and the death of some of those co-authors.

National case law

BoligPortal A/S v ReData A/S, Denmark

While this case does not directly relate to text and data mining, it does bear some potential implications for that debate, so it has found its way into our roundup. In this case, decided in October, the claimant had placed a prohibition of data mining on their website in their policy, which appeared publicly in HTML format and was linked from the website’s footer, meaning it was visible and technically accessible. Despite this, the defendant scraped data from the applicant’s website. The Danish Maritime and Commercial Court held that this notice amounted to an “appropriate” reservation (or opt-out) within the meaning of Article 4(3)the CDSM Directive. To note is that it was not necessary to include the reservation in a robots.txt file. A clear, accessible online policy in standard HTML form was sufficient to meet the opt-out requirement, according to the Danish court. 

OpenAI v GEMA, LG Munich, Germany

In one of the more high-profile cases in this field, the Landgericht München delivered in November its decision in the copyright dispute between OpenAI and GEMA, the German collective management organisation for musical works. The proceedings concerned allegations by GEMA that certain outputs generated by OpenAI’s ChatGPT system reproduced protected song lyrics from its repertoire without authorisation and therefore constituted copyright infringement under German law, for which injunctive relief was sought. OpenAI disputed liability, maintaining that its system does not store copyrighted works, does not intentionally reproduce protected content, and generates text through probabilistic processes rather than by accessing or reproducing protected content. In its judgment, the Munich court assessed whether the specific outputs at issue met the legal threshold for copyright infringement, whether there was memorization in the model, and examined the conditions under which OpenAI could be held responsible under the relevant provisions of German and European Union copyright law. GEMA largely prevailed in this case; OpenAI has announced that it will appeal the decision.

See Giancarlo Frosio’s comment here and here.

Getty Images v Stability AI, UK

In the UK, this has been the most awaited AI/copyright case. During the trial in June, the primary copyright infringement claim was dropped, which left the High Court only with a secondary infringement claim. The case also concerned trade mark infringement and a passing off claim. The Court delivered its judgment in November 2025. Read Estelle Derclaye’s take on it here. Getty have now been granted permission to appeal, so this is certainly not the end of the story.

Kneschke v LAION, OLG Hamburg, Germany

On appeal from the first instance (LG Hamburg), in December the OLG Hamburg dealt once again with the notion of machine-readable rights reservation. Read Paul Keller’s take on this here and here.

Policy

Digital and Communication Committee, UK House of Lords, AI and Copyright Inquiry

In November 2025, the Digital and Communications committee of the House of Lords opened an in inquiry into copyright and AI, which includes several oral witness sessions as well as written submissions upon request. The committee’s report, expected to be issued in early 2026,  promises to look at various familiar themes such as licensing of copyright works for AI training, transparency mechanisms, as well as the current TDM. You can read a roundup on what has happened in UK AI and copyright policy in 2025 here by one of us.

European Union Intellectual Property Office, Copyright Centre Launch

The EU Intellectual Property office launched its copyright centre in late November 2025. The centre promises to be a single gateway for copyright knowledge by way of strengthening stakeholder engagement in the coming years.

European Commission, Assessment of the Effects of the Recommendation on Combatting Online Piracy of Sports and other Live Events

Evaluating the 2023 Recommendation on combating online piracy, the assessment issued in November 2025 comes to the conclusion that despite the progress made, the Recommendation has “not resulted in considerable curbing of the overall level of piracy of live events”. It appears that this is due to “the lack of an effective treatment of notices by some categories of hosting service providers as well as the reluctance of certain intermediaries to cooperate with rightholders.”

European Composer and Songwriter Alliance, Open letter on transparency in AI deals

In view of the several licensing deals between record labels and AI companies that have emerged last year, the Alliance calls for more transparency over the details in these deals. Concerns draw on the experience from streaming. The Alliance states: “we simply cannot afford a repeat of the music streaming model, whereby major record labels entered into early agreements with streaming platforms to secure favourable terms for their catalogues, including through ownership stakes.”

UK government, Progress statement - Data (Use and Access) Act 2025

On 15 December, a progress statement was issued as requested by s137 of the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025. The statement updates the public on the responses from the public consultation it carried out in 2025 and gives a detailed overview of the current policy developments and working groups in the UK on AI and copyright.

European Parliament, The economics of copyright and AI

In December, the Parliament published a commissioned in-depth empirical study of how copyright policies should respond to AI. Stay tuned for a post in the coming weeks summarizing the report.

European Commission, Information session on protocols for rights reservation

The Commission held an online session in December supporting the consultation on the implementation of the AI Act’s copyright-related obligations for GPAI providers. The session looked at process to implement measure 1.3 of the Copyright Chapter of the GPAI Code of Practice and the technical solutions identified in the EUIPO study on genAI and copyright. 

European Commission, Consultation on protocols for reserving rights from text and data mining under the AI Act and the GPAI Code of Practice

In December, the Commission launched a consultation on the available rights reservation protocols. The deadline to respond is 23 January 2026.

Coming soon and latest referrals

The new year promises a lot also when it comes to pending cases.

First, on the national front, the UK Courts of Appeal will be dealing with Getty Images v Stability AI as appeal permission was granted, while the German appellate court in Munich will be looking at the GEMA v OpenAI case.

Then, moving on to the CJEU, the Luxembourg judges are still yet to answer questions on various copyright protectability standards in Institutul G. Călinescu (C-649/23) and Gândul Media Network (C-598/24).

Unsurprisingly, the CJEU will still be analysing the right of communication to the public in various contexts: in VHC 2 Seniorenresidenz (C-127/24) with respect to retirement homes, in Cloudfare (C-534/25) with respect to a hyperlink to an infringing copy of a music album, in Thuiskopie v HP (C-496/24) with respect to “offline streaming copies” and in Anne-Frank Fonds (C-788/24) with respect to VPNs and geoblocking (the AG Opinion on this case has been published in the interim; we will have an analysis of it up on the blog shortly).

In addition, the topic of private copy and levies will be further unpacked in VG Wort (C-840/24), while many are eagerly awaiting the next stage of the Kraftwerk saga in Pelham II (C-590/23), where the CJEU will rule on the notion of pastiche.

Furthermore, collective management will be dealt with in Stowarzyszenie Artystów Wykonawców SAWP (C-601/25) and blocking injunctions are the issue in Satel Film (C-832/24, C-833/24 and C-834/24).

Finally, several questions on the CDSM Directive provisions are at stake in the following cases: Austro-Mechana (C-579/24) on the scope of Article 17, Like Company v Google (C-250/25) on text and data mining (on which, see here), as well as Meta (C-797/23), Streamz and Others (C-663/24) and Agecop (C-441/25) on various aspects of the notion of fair compensation.

Stay tuned!