New draft paper takes an economic perspective on the neighbouring rights debate and tries to find an explanation for this market outcome. First of all, it examines the economic impact of news aggregation platforms on news publishers. The available empirical evidence shows that news aggregators have a positive impact on news publishers’ advertising revenue. That explains why publishers are eager to distribute their content through aggregators.
Comments closedCategory: Intellectual property
The European Commission has decided to refer Austria to the Court of Justice of the EU for incorrectly applying Value Added Tax (VAT) to royalty payments paid to artists for the resale of works of art.
Comments closedSCF, both within and outside Italy, manages, collects and distributes the royalties of its associated phonogram producers. SCF conducted negotiations with the Association of Italian Dentists with a view to concluding a collective agreement quantifying the relevant equitable remuneration for any ‘communication to the public’ of phonograms, including such communication in private professional practices.
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Wolk, an independent artist of fantasy images and sports art, licenses her images through an exclusive licensing agent. Some of the images can consume as much as a year of Wolk’s professional time to create and produce in final form. The sole source of income for Wolk is the sale or licensing of her art, and Wolk runs an online store that exclusively sells her art. Photobucket is a photo-sharing ISP that operates a website located at www.photobucket.com.
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In the present case, the parties are in dispute in particular as to whether the principles developed in SGAE ruling, which concerned copyright and hotel bedrooms, can be applied by analogy to the related rights of phonogram producers and performers, where a radio broadcast in which phonograms are used is audible in a dental practice. The referring court wished to know, first of all, whether a dentist who makes radio broadcasts audible in his practice is required to pay equitable remuneration for the indirect communication to the public of phonograms communicated in the radio broadcasts.
Comments closedArticle 8 obliges Member States to enable the competent judicial authorities to order that the infringer or certain other persons provide precise information on the origin of the infringing goods or services, the distribution channels and the identity of any third parties involved in the infringement. Any order by the competent judicial authorities to provide information issued under Article 8 should only concern information which is actually needed to identify the source and scope of the infringement.
Comments closedNon-regulatory options are not considered because they would not be sufficient to achieve the objectives. Their effectiveness would be similar to the baseline scenario, and they would not provide the necessary degree of legal certainty.
Comments closedThe Copyright Act defines a literary work as “works, other than audiovisual works, expressed in words, numbers, or other verbal or numerical symbols or indicia, regardless of the nature of the material objects, such as books, periodicals, manuscripts, phonorecords, film, tapes, disks, or cards, in which they are embodied.”
Comments closedIn the view of the Portuguese Republic, the person who makes the work directly available to the public and who therefore effects an ‘act of communication’ within the meaning of Article 3(1) of Directive 2001/29 is the person who places the work on the server from which the internet user is able to access it. The Portuguese Republic submits that it is not the ‘hyperlinker’ — who merely makes a secondary or indirect ‘communication’ — that ensures that ‘members of the public may access [the works] from a place and at a time individually chosen by them’. The act which actually produces that effect is undertaken by the person who effected the initial communication.
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