Copyright Law

The Humboldt Internet Law Clinic Launched

Posted on June 29, 2012
Anyone how has ever attended law school in the United States knows what legal clinics are about. In recent years, clinical work with students in law school settings has been gaining momentum worldwide. Law faculties in Europe, Southeast Asia, South America, Africa, India, Japan and Israel (to name a few) already incorporate clinical activities within the fabric of their more traditional curriculum...

The ECJ's Scarlet Decision: No Broad Filtering Duty for European ISPs

Posted on November 24, 2011
Per today's ruling, injunctions against European ISPs requiring them to apply filtering tools that monitor traffic to prevent copyright infringement officially violate EU law. The Scarlet decision puts a major stick in the wheel of wholesale copyright holders fighting against file sharing activities...

The End of Satellite Decoders for Sports Broadcasting in Europe?

Posted on October 05, 2011
Not quite, but the UK-based Football Association Premier League (FAPL) will not be celebrating the ruling of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on the subject from yesterday. Football Association Premier League Ltd et al. v. QC Leisure et al. bears the marks of a very significant milestone in the area of European copyright and broadcasting law...

Why German Privacy Officials Don?t Like Facebook?s ?like? Button

Posted on August 22, 2011
Schleswig-Holstein is a small German state located at the very northern tip of the Federal Republic. It is home for enchanting cities such as Kiel and Lübeck, long coastlines overlooking the Baltic See to the east and the North See to the west. Other than scenic landscape, rich culture and a border with Denmark, Schleswig-Holstein also has a dynamic privacy commissioner...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

High-Profile Litigation Over Use of Embedded Open Source Software in Germany

Posted on June 20, 2011
In a press release from today the Free Software Foundation Europe announces the opening of the court proceedings in the litigation between a maker of DSL routers and a maker of filtering software designed to protecting children from objectionable material on the Internet...

The Israeli Google Books Class Action

Posted on April 13, 2011
Last week, Google Books suffered another legal attack in the form of a class action, this time in Israel. I have been reading through the complaint and the class action motion this morning. Below my short description and initial assessment. Plaintiff is the author and sole rights holder in a book printed and published in Israel in 2003...

Who Said France Does Not Have Fair Use?

Posted on January 28, 2011
Valérie Laure Benabou, a law professor at the University of Versailles and an esteemed expert on French and international copyright law, kindly agreed to share her thoughts on the Google vs. SAIF case decided yesterday by the Paris Court of Appeals: An important decision of the Paris Court of Appeal was rendered yesterday in a litigation between Google and a French Collective Society for Visual Works (SAIF)...

Who Said France Does Not Have Fair Use?

Posted on January 28, 2011
Valérie Laure Benabou, a law professor at the University of Versailles and an esteemed expert on French and international copyright law, kindly agreed to share her thoughts on the Google vs. SAIF case decided yesterday by the Paris Court of Appeals: An important decision of the Paris Court of Appeal was rendered yesterday in a litigation between Google and a French Collective Society for Visual Works (SAIF)...

Access-Right over Open Access

Posted on January 25, 2011
The term open access is often used roughly to describe free circulation of academic and scholarly contributions over electronic media. The basic idea is to enhance speed and lower costs of access to new research and cutting-edge scholarship, as well as to improve collaboration between researches and allow them to benefit from the work and critique of their peers...

Access-Right over Open Access

Posted on January 25, 2011
The term open access is often used roughly to describe free circulation of academic and scholarly contributions over electronic media. The basic idea is to enhance speed and lower costs of access to new research and cutting-edge scholarship, as well as to improve collaboration between researches and allow them to benefit from the work and critique of their peers...

Israeli Court Enforces for the First Time a Creative Commons License

Posted on January 14, 2011
A court in Israel found that taking CC-licensed pictures from Flickr and publishing them in a book violated the copyright in each and every picture separately. (Source: www.law.co.il, including a link to the decision in Hebrew). The facts are trivial: Plaintiffs, amateur photographers, uploaded their pictures to Flickr under a CC attribution, non-commercial, no-derivative license...

Israeli Court Enforces for the First Time a Creative Commons License

Posted on January 14, 2011
A court in Israel found that taking CC-licensed pictures from Flickr and publishing them in a book violated the copyright in each and every picture separately. (Source: www.law.co.il, including a link to the decision in Hebrew). Read more » about Israeli Court Enforces for the First Time a Creative Commons License Related Topics: isrealflickrFair UseCreative Commons

Data Protection Commissioner to go after Google Analytics

Posted on January 12, 2011
The tension between Google and data protection agencies intensified over the last two days. The Data Protection Commissioner in Hamburg is apparently unhappy with the changes Google has introduced to Google Analytics intending to square it with European data protection regulation...

Data Protection Commissioner to go after Google Analytics

Posted on January 12, 2011
The tension between Google and data protection agencies intensified over the last two days. The Data Protection Commissioner in Hamburg is apparently unhappy with the changes Google has introduced to Google Analytics intending to square it with European data protection regulation...

Access-Right Book Released

Posted on November 08, 2010
My book on digital copyright law is now finally available. Here is the abstract (from Oxford's website): Copyright law has become the subject of general concerns that reach beyond the limited circles of specialists and prototypical rights-holders. The role, scope and effect of copyright mechanisms involve genuinely complex questions...

The European Court of Justice Rules on Copyright Levies

Posted on November 08, 2010
I am a little late with this comment on the ECJ?s decision released two weeks ago that tackles issues of copyright levies in Europe. In a nutshell, the idea behind copyright levies is to compensate rights holders (via collection societies) for activities roughly described as ?private copying? by imposing charges on media and equipment that enable such activities...

Access-Right Book Released

Posted on November 08, 2010
My book on digital copyright law is now finally available. Here is the abstract (from Oxford's website): Read more » about Access-Right Book Released Related Topics: Copyrightaccess-rightzohar efroni

The European Court of Justice Rules on Copyright Levies

Posted on November 08, 2010
I am a little late with this comment on the ECJ?s decision released two weeks ago that tackles issues of copyright levies in Europe. In a nutshell, the idea behind copyright levies is to compensate rights holders (via collection societies) for activities roughly described as ?private copying? by imposing charges on media and equipment that enable such activities...

Data Protection and Free Speech in Germany

Posted on November 01, 2010
[I am happy to have Thorsten Feldmann as a guest blogger here. Thorsten is a well-known expert on German data protection law and a blogger in his own right.] Privacy protection in the global information society is today, perhaps more than ever before, a hotly-debated topic in Germany...

Data Protection and Free Speech in Germany

Posted on November 01, 2010
[I am happy to have Thorsten Feldmann as a guest blogger here. Thorsten is a well-known expert on German data protection law and a blogger in his own right.]  Privacy protection in the global information society is today, perhaps more than ever before, a hotly-debated topic in Germany...

Recent Developments in Anti-Circumvention law, GPL Licensing and Adwords

Posted on October 18, 2010
There are some interesting developments in three areas I have been covering in this blog for some time now, all coming from foreign courts. Anti-Circumvention Law According to press reports (the decision has not been officially published yet), the German highest civil appellate court (BGH) reversed last week a judgment coming from the Regional Appellate Court in Munich concerning the liability of internet news portals for linking to Internet sites where unlawful circumvention software is offered...

Recent Developments in Anti-Circumvention law, GPL Licensing and Adwords

Posted on October 18, 2010
There are some interesting developments in three areas I have been covering in this blog for some time now, all coming from foreign courts. Read more » about Recent Developments in Anti-Circumvention law, GPL Licensing and Adwords Related Topics: gplanti-circumventionadwords

Google's New Adwording Policy in Europe

Posted on September 15, 2010
As of yesterday, Google?s new policy concerning registration of trademarks as keywords for triggering contextual advertisement in many European countries went into effect. The new policy, which strongly relies on the recent ECJ decision on Google?s potential liability for TM infringement via its adwords practice, demonstrates a notable shift in Google?s approach...

Google's New Adwording Policy in Europe

Posted on September 15, 2010
As of yesterday, Google?s new policy concerning registration of trademarks as keywords for triggering contextual advertisement in many European countries went into effect. The new policy, which strongly relies on the recent ECJ decision on Google?s potential liability for TM infringement via its adwords practice, demonstrates a notable shift in Google?s approach...

The ECJ?s Ruling on Google Adwords

Posted on March 23, 2010
The closely watched battle over the use of trademarks as keywords for purpose of triggering advertisements on Google?s search result pages (AdWords) reached high pick today with the release of the European Court of Justice?s ruling on the French cases...

The ECJ?s Ruling on Google Adwords

Posted on March 23, 2010
The closely watched battle over the use of trademarks as keywords for purpose of triggering advertisements on Google?s search result pages (AdWords) reached high peak today with the release of the European Court of Justice?s ruling on the French cases...

Sweeping Telecom Data Retention Law Held Unconstitutional in Germany

Posted on March 02, 2010
The German Constitutional Court (GCC) this morning stroke down a law that imposed on private telecom operators and service providers such as ISPs and telephone companies comprehensive duties to keep record of all communication data, including Internet activity, e-mails, SMS, MMS etc...

Sweeping Telecom Data Retention Law Held Unconstitutional in Germany

Posted on March 02, 2010
The German Constitutional Court (GCC) this morning struck down a law that imposed on private telecom operators and service providers such as ISPs and telephone companies comprehensive duties to keep record of all communication data, including Internet activity, e-mails, SMS, MMS etc...

Paper on Information as Intellectual Property Subject Matter

Posted on February 02, 2010
I?ve just posted my paper on information as IP subject matter. The paper addresses some basic questions about the idea of property-like rights in ?information? at the abstract level. Beyond theory, the conception of information developed there has various applications to a host of more specific questions of IP law, e...

Paper on Information as Intellectual Property Subject Matter

Posted on February 02, 2010
I?ve just posted my paper on information as IP subject matter. The paper addresses some basic questions about the idea of property-like rights in ?information? at the abstract level. Beyond theory, the conception of information developed there has various applications to a host of more specific questions of IP law, e...

Bloggers, promote your law blog by nominating your blog for inclusion in USLaw.com's Law Blog Directory and RSS Reader. Benefits described.