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Category: Exceptions and limitations

Freemium is not “for free” in secondary transmission of signal

Non – profit organization Sports Fans Coaliti on NY, Inc. (“SFCNY”) operated the Locast service, which captures over-the-air (“OTA”) broadcast signals and retransmits them over the internet, enabling viewers to stream live television on their preferred internet-connected viewing device. The signals include copyrighted transmissions from plaintiffs’ broadcast stations. Locast has not paid for a license or obtained plaintiff’s consent to retransmit those programs.

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First amendment protection for trademark parody

VIP Products sells the “Bad Spaniels Silly Squeaker” dog toy, which resembles a bottle of Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 Black Label Tennessee Whiskey, but has light-hearted, dog-related alterations. For example, the name “Jack Daniel’s” is replaced with “Bad Spaniels,” “Old No. 7” with “Old No. 2,” and alcohol content descriptions with “43% POO BY VOL.” and “100% SMELLY.”

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The more transformative the new work, the less significance of other factors, like commercialism

Tamita Brown, Glen S. Chapman, and Jason T. Chapman (“Plaintiffs”) are musicians who created the song Fish Sticks n’ Tater Tots (the “Song). In 2017, a documentary film titled Burlesque: Heart of the Glitter Tribe (the “Film”) depicts a group of burlesque dancers in Portland, Oregon, one of whom incorporated the Song in a performance.

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SWD IA on the modernization of EU copyright rules – options to introduce press publishers right

Baseline

No policy intervention. Under this option, the use of publications would remain governed by the rules applicable to the rights transferred to press publishers by authors and other rightholders. Issues related to the different bargaining position of press publishers and online service providers would not be addressed, without prejudice to the possible application of competition law.

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Impact assessment on the modernisation of EU copyright rules – rights in publications

Publishers are increasingly facing difficulties in relation to the digital exploitation of, and the enforcement of rights in, press publications such as newspapers and magazines. The changes to the way copyright-protected content is distributed and consumed in the digital environment have affected press publications in a specific way. The publishing industry is in the middle of a shift from print to digital.

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SWD IA on EU copyright modernisation – impacts of baseline and first options for preservation of cultural heritage

Baseline

In the short term, the situation would not substantially change for CHIs. They would enjoy a narrow or larger space for preservation depending on the MS in which they carry out their preservation activities. Except in cases where MS may update their implementation of the current EU exception for ‘specific acts of reproduction’ to exploit its full space for preservation purposes, legal uncertainty and barriers to preservation will persist to varying degrees in the long term too.

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SWD IA on EU copyright modernisation – options to address preservation of cultural heritage

Baseline

No policy intervention. Reproduction of works for preservation purposes by CHIs would continue to take place only as permitted under the different conditions and the varying space provided by the national implementation of the existing EU exception for ‘specific acts of reproduction’, or after the reproduction right has been cleared with rightholders if CHIs consider that the transaction costs involved is for them worth and possible to incur. In voluntary legal deposit contexts and for parts of scientific publications that libraries have access to remotely, preservation could continue to take place within broader agreement-based systems.

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EU exit UK IP draft regulations

A substantial part of the law on copyright in the UK is derived from EU law. There are 11 EU Directives all of which have been implemented by the UK. The purpose of the Directives is to harmonise the copyright frameworks in Member States, by reducing national discrepancies and maintaining a level of protection which encourages creativity and enables consumers from across the EU to access services.

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