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Kat Awards! The end of 2018 is fast approaching and, if you've not been stranded at Gatwick Airport due to the drone chaos (I have), you might have already begun your Holidays.  As it has become sort of a tradition for this blog, also this year The IPKat is conferring a number of (symbolic) copyright prizes. For previous editions, see  here ,  here ,   here ,   here ,  and   here . 2018 has been an eventful copyright year, with Europe playing a key role on the global arena, also due to the ever-heated discussions concerning the EU copyright reform, most notably with regard to the proposal for a Directive on copyright in the Digital Single Market  [Katposts  here ] . As readers know, the proposal is now approaching the end of its legislative iter, having both the  Council  and the  European Parliament  adopted their own versions of the directive and with trilogue negotiations currently ongoing. The fi...

Gamla stan in Stockholm, where the defendant's business was located Back in October The IPKat  reported  that in  Syed , C-572/17  Advocate General (AG)  Campos Sánchez-Bordona  had advised  the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) to rule that the warehouse storage of copyright-infringing items due to be issued to the public is to be considered as an act falling within the scope of the right of distribution within Article 4 of the  InfoSoc Directive . Personally I thought and wrote that, in light of existing CJEU case law on the right of distribution - notably the decision in  Dimensione Direct Sales   [Katposts  here ]  -, the AG Opinion was not at all surprising. Yesterday, after less than 3 months, the CJEU issued its   judgment , which endorses the Opinion of AG Campos. Let's see how the Court reasoned. Concept of 'distribution' The CJEU started by noting the the concept of 'distribution' wit...

The new Irish AG, Gerard Hogan One of the most controversial proposals in the  draft Directive on copyright in the Digital Single Market  is Article 11  [Katposts  here ] , this being a provision that would introduce at the EU level a new related right in favour of press publishers. The EU proposal follows legislation to a similar effect, which was adopted in Germany and Spain, though with different mechanisms: a new related right in the former, and an amendment to the quotation exception in the latter. A few years ago (in 2013), Germany was in fact the first country in Europe to introduce a new related right in favour of press publishers. This is aimed at giving them control over third-party unlicensed use of their content. Legislation was adopted in an economic context - that of the press sector in Europe - of constantly declining revenue.  Sections 87f-h  of the German Copyright Act ( UrhG ) provide for a right of press publish...

Moses Pelham Earlier this week The IPKat  reported  that Advocate General (AG) Szpunar has now issued his (non- insubstantial : 100 paragraphs)  Opinion  in  Pelham , C-476/17 (the  Metall auf Metall  case). As readers know, this referral from Germany is asking the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) to provide guidance on the lawfulness of unlicensed sampling. Sampling  is the taking  of the sounds fixed in a phonogram  in order to incorporate them into a new phonogram that contains a new work: here's  an example   in which Italian hip hop artist Mondo Marcio realized an entire album, where each track samples (with a licence) from iconic 1960s singer  Mina . It has to be said that, in the immediate aftermath of its release, commentators appeared rather disappointed with the Opinion, which recommends the CJEU to rule that unlicensed sampling may be a copyright infringement. Having now had a chan...