©-LAW

Trying to understand newly proposed VAT rules Can VAT rules have any implications for ... copyright? Yesterday - as part of its  Digital Single Market Strategy  - the EU Commission unveiled proposals for  new tax rules  with the objective of supporting e-commerce and online businesses in the EU. Among the measures proposed, there is one that may be of interest also from a copyright perspective.  New VAT rules for e-publications The Commission proposed in fact to apply the same VAT rate to e-publications, eg e-books and online newspapers, as for their printed equivalents, thus  removing provisions that excluded e-publications from the favourable tax treatment allowed for traditional printed publications. As explained in the relevant  proposal , a ccording to the  VAT Directive  electronically supplied services including electronically supplied publications have to be taxed at the standard VAT rate (minimum 15%). On the other hand, Me...

AG Maciej Szpunar Are libraries allowed to lend electronic books in their collections under the  Rental and  Lending Rights Directive ? If so, under what conditions? Is there such thing as digital exhaustion under the   InfoSoc Directive ? As to the latter, we know - via   UsedSoft   [Katposts  here ]  there that there is such thing under the   Software Directive , but whether this is also true for the principal copyright directive has been debated for a while   [with some possible hints provided by  Allposters ,  here , although not everybody agrees: see below ] . Those above are - in a nutshell - the  questions  currently pending before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in  Vereniging Openbare Bibliotheken v  Stichting Leenrecht , C-174/15, a reference for a preliminary ruling from the  Rechtbank Den Haag (District Court of The Hague, Netherlands).  This reference has arise...