BREAKING: German courts make two (very important) copyright references to the CJEU
This morning the Bundesgerichtshof (BGH, the German Federal Court of Justice) has referred not one - but two - copyright cases to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for guidance, respectively, on: To what extent EU copyright allows sampling , ie the taking of part of a sound recording for re-use as an instrument or sound recording in a different song or piece [readers with an interest in hip-hop will know that sampling in this genre is very frequent and in the US has caused quite a few IP-related headaches to the likes of Kanye West and Jay Z ] ; and What role fundamental rights play in the copyright sphere. More specifically, what is the relationship between copyright protection, freedom of the press, and freedom of information? WARNING: I do not speak German, and have tried to make a sense of these new cases by reading the relevant press releases; please let me know if I have misunderstood anything. Sampling, free use, ...