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Category: Copyright

SWD IA on EU copyright modernisation – impacts of baseline option for digital retransmission

The legal uncertainty as to whether all rights relevant for the retransmission have been cleared faced by the retransmission service providers other than cable is expected to persist under the baseline option. As a result, those service providers can be expected to continue limiting their retransmission offers. Moreover, in view of the legal uncertainty, some market players might hesitate to launch innovative retransmission services or delay the launch in order to deal with licensing.

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Third edition of USA copyright office compendium – numbers

Individual numbers are not copyrightable and cannot be registered with the U.S. Copyright Office. Likewise, the Office cannot register a claim to copyright in values expressed in individual numbers, individual letters, or individual words. Individual numbers are never copyrightable for the same reason that an individual word cannot be protected by copyright.

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The case when communication to the public is without intention to make profit

SCF, 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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How you can lose your art thanks to Internet

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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Reasons for Vitorino’s recommendations on private copying and reprography levies: the general “leviability” of products and the country of destination principle in cross-border transactions

Consumers enjoy increasing possibilities to make private copies (for instance of CDs) and to store them on multiple devices. The same applies as regards reprographic copies. The need to compensate for such acts of private copying will not vanish from one day to the next. Therefore, although the importance of levy systems will probably decline over time, they will not be simply abolished in the near future, as some stakeholders would prefer.

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Collective Rights Management: Commission refers Bulgaria, Luxembourg, Romania and Spain to the Court of Justice

The European Commission decided to refer Bulgaria, Luxembourg, Romania and Spain to the Court of Justice of the EU for failure to notify complete transposition of EU rules on collective management of copyright and related rights, and multi-territorial licensing of rights in musical works for online use into national law as foreseen by 10 April 2016 Collective Rights Management Directive, Directive 2014/26/EU.

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SCF v Marco Del Corso – opinion of advocate general

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.

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Third edition of USA copyright office compendium – Literary Work

The 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.”

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GS Media v Sanoma – observations of the parties in court

In 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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