Businesses can unknowingly infringe others’ copyrights in all kinds of ways. It’s important for copyright holders to know their rights. It’s also important for those using copyrighted content to be aware of common pitfalls...more
Every year, the world celebrates the first of January as Public Domain Day, marking the release of copyrighted works into the public domain. In 2024, we saw popular intellectual properties enter the public domain, including...more
German courts have been dealing with the Metall auf Metall [song by the German band Kraftwerk] case for two decades. Recently, the CJEU, too, has had to deal with the case and ruled by judgment of 29 July 2019 (C-476/17) that...more
In December 2018, CJEU Advocate General Szpunar took the view that the reuse of a sound sequence in a new song (referred to as sampling) without the author’s permission violates copyright law (case C-476/17 – Moses Pelham et...more
In a move that will likely benefit game developers, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit explicitly held that First Amendment protection extends to use of third-party trademarks in the commercial promotion of an...more