The new French law targeting "automated image referencing services": does EU law allow it?
Image Search for IPKat As reported by this blog [ here , here and here ] , earlier this year France adopted a law [ Loi No 2016-925 on freedom of creation, architecture and cultural heritage] which - among other things - introduced new provisions [ Articles L 136-1 to 136-4 ] into the Code de la propriété intellectuelle (CPI) to regulate the exercise of the exclusive rights of reproduction and representation vis-à-vis automated image referencing services. The content of the new provisions As explained by Brad Spitz in a post published on the Kluwer Copyright Blog, "the new provisions will apply to ‘automated image search services’, which Article L.136-1 IPC defines as any online public communication service that reproduces and makes available to the public for purposes of indexing and SEO, plastic, graphic or photographic works, collected in an autom...