©-LAW

A change or just a clarification? As  reported  by The IPKat, earlier this week the European Parliament adopted  the latest version  of the new Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (DSM Directive). The IPKat will now run a series of posts discussing some of the key aspects of this new instrument which, following publication in the Official Journal of the EU, will need to be transposed by EU Member States within 2 years. Today I begin with a provision or, rather, a recital that, at least in certain respects, makes national transpositions somewhat redundant. It relates to the 'value gap' provision in what is now Article 17 of the Directive (formerly Article 13). Article 17(1) states: Member States shall provide that an online content-sharing service provider performs an act of communication to the public or an act of making available to the public for the purposes of this Directive when it gives the public access to cop...

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all? When it comes to the violation of one's own image rights, what damages can be awarded? Is it just the damage due to the moral prejudice caused or also damages for the economic prejudice suffered by the person whose rights have been violated? Does the fact that the claimant ruled out any possibility for third parties to use their image influence at all the identification of what damages are due, eg because there is no actual market for the licensing of the claimant's image? These are all issues that the Italian Supreme Court recently considered in a case ( sentenza 1875/19 ) concerning the violation of a well-known actor's image rights. Unsurprisingly, the court confirmed its earlier approach that, when it comes to image rights violations, the damage that can be compensated is both of a moral and economic nature. Let's see how the court reasoned. Background The Milan Cour...

Yesterday, the Italian Supreme Court issued two key decisions concerning the liability of intermediaries for third-party IPR infringements. The judgments are:   Decision 7708/19  Reti Televisive Italiane SpA v Yahoo! Inc   and   Decision 7709/19  Reti Televisive Italiane SpA v Yahoo! Inc . The former relates to Yahoo!’s videosharing service, while the latter concerns Yahoo!’s search engine.  The Yahoo!'s videosharing service decision is particularly important in that it: clarifies at what conditions a hosting provider would be eligible (and ineligible) for the safe harbour under Italian law (where the divide passive/active host has been subject to extensive discussions in case law and scholarly literature alike); holds that a notice-and-takedown request does not necessarily have to indicate the URLs at which infringing content is to be found (this being yet another contentious issue under Italian law); and finds that a notice-and-taked...

The IPKat's Central Bank What has the  Statute of the European System of Central Banks  have to do with IP law?  Directly, perhaps not much.  However, a case recently decided in this area and concerning the provisional suspension of the Governor of the Central Bank of Latvia pending criminal investigations might have potentially important implications also in the field of IP.  In particular, it might be relevant in the case in which an EU Member State has incorrectly transposed an EU directive into its own national law. Rimsevics Last month the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued a decision,  Rimsevics ,  C‑202/18 and C‑238/18 , which for the first time saw the highest EU court directly annulling an act rendered by an authority of a Member State (Latvia) and extricated it from that domestic legal order.  In her  Opinion  in that case, Advocate General (AG) Kokott had s...

As thoroughly discussed by  Enrico Bonadio  on  The Conversation , a few weeks ago the Milan Court of First Instance issued an interim ruling in favour of mysterious artist Banksy or, rather, the company that manages his IP rights ( Pest Control Office ). The application sought to repress the unauthorized use of Banksy's registered trade marks and reproductions of his/her artworks in the context of an art exhibition in Milan. The text of the decision in RG 52442/2018  Pest Control Office Limited v 24 Ore Cultura s.r.l.  is available  here . Let's see what happened. Background The applicant, Pest Control Office, is responsible for issuing certificates of authenticity re Banksy's artworks, and for selling his artworks and organizing exhibitions on his/her works. It has also registered a number of EU trade marks, including the word mark 'BANKSY' and the following figurative trade marks representing two of his/her best-known w...