On 24 May 2011, the European Commission announced a proposal for a directive on ‘certain permitted uses of orphan works’. This title perfectly conveys the scope of the proposal. Rather than adopting…
On the 24th and 25th of May, the French President Nicolas Sarkozy convened a forum on the future of the Internet, the e-G8 Forum, two days before the Meeting of the leaders of the G-8. This forum was…
The saga of copyright protection of industrial design works continues.
Historically, Italian courts had been very reluctant to recognize copyright protection to industrial design works due to a…
As reported by the Dutch commentator Lucie Guibault in her recent Blogpost the Dutch government (in the person of the secretary of state, Fred Teeven) plans to restrict the private copying limitation…
BELGIUM - In a case of SABAM (the Belgian Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers) versus a counterfeits dealer, the Belgian Supreme Courts finds that in litigations against copyright infringers…
DENMARK - An end user of the Direct Connect file sharing network was found liable for copyright infringements. However, the Supreme Court did not agree with the right holders (respondents) that the…
On 3 May 2011, the Paris Court of Appeal dismissed the claims of copyright infringement brought by the Syndicat National de l’Edition Phonographique (SNEP- trade association of the French recording…
On 2 May 2011 the Ministry of Culture in Portugal made public a law proposal concerning the regulation of private copying levies (the English version of which is unfortunately not available). The law…
The commented decision may at first glance appear to be of limited importance only, but after closer examination it contains two interesting points of more general significance.
The basic facts are…
[By Luke McDonagh) The Irish Times has today reported that the copyright in the Irish national anthem is due to expire next year. When the copyright in "A Soldier's Song", or as it is known in its…
