Is the German press publishers' right lawful? More details on the CJEU reference
As reported by this blog a few months ago, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has been required to address issues of lawfulness - notably enforceability - of the German neighbouring right for press publishers. Why a CJEU reference? Back in May, in fact, the Landgericht Berlin decided [ here ] to stay the proceedings in the litigation between the collecting society responsible for collecting royalties in favour of publishers (VG Media) and Google, and make a reference for a preliminary ruling to the CJEU. The purpose of the reference is to receive guidance on the actual enforceability of the German press publishers' right. Directive 98/34 requires in fact Member States to notify the European Commission of any “technical regulations” that they intend to adopt. This is to allow the Commission to assess their impact on the internal market. Apparently German Government failed to notif...