CJEU says that failure to pay fair compensation for private copying is a tort
Where can one (read: a collective management organisation) sue to obtain missing payments of the fair remuneration due for private copying? This is the question that the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) addressed yesterday in Austro-Mechana v Amazon , C-572/14 [thanks to EU law enthusiast and scholar Steve Peers for the heads up] . The Austrian Supreme Court had in fact asked the CJEU to say whether a claim for missed payment of ‘fair compensation’ under Article 5(2)(b) of the InfoSoc Directive can be considered akin to 'tort, delict or quasi-delict' within what is currently Article 7(2) of Brussels I Recast [formerly Article 5(3) of Brussels I] for the sake of determining the court(s) competent to hear such action. Besides the general rule (Article 4) that allows one to sue in the Member State where the defendant is domiciled/established, as a special rule Article 7(2) of Brussels ...