Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:1999:166
Date: 1999-03-23
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Intellectual, industrial and commercial property;Approximation of laws
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Italy

Summary of the Judgment 
1. Acts of the institutions — Act amending an earlier provision — Application of the 
amending rule to the future effects of situations arising during the currency of the 
earlier provision — Principle of the protection of legitimate expectations — No effect 
2. Approximation of laws — Copyright and related rights — Directive 93/98 — 
Harmonisation of the term of protection — Revival of rights which expired before 
implementation of the Directive — Protection of rights acquired by third parties — 
National legislation limiting that protection — Whether permissible 
(Council Directive 93/98, Art. 10(2) and (3)) 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-60/98 
1. As a matter of principle, amending 
legislation applies, unless otherwise 
provided, to the future consequences 
of situations which arose under the 
previous legislation. Although the prin­
ciple of the protection of legitimate 
expectations is one of the fundamental 
principles of the Community, it cannot 
be extended to the point of generally 
preventing new rules from applying to 
the future consequences of situations 
which arose under the earlier rules. 
2. It is clear from Article 10(2) and (3), 
read together, of Directive 93/98 har­
monising the term of protection of 
copyright and certain related rights 
that the Directive provides for the 
possibility that copyright and related 
rights which had expired under the 
applicable legislation before the date of 
its implementation could be revived, 
without prejudice to acts of exploita­
tion performed before that date, while 
leaving it to the Member States to 
adopt measures to protect acquired 
rights of third parties. Such measures 
must be regarded as measures which 
the Member States are under an obli­
gation to adopt, but the details of 
which are left to the discretion of the 
Member States, provided, however, 
that those details do not have the 
overall effect of preventing the applica­
tion of the new terms of protection on 
the date laid down by the Directive. 
Accordingly, Article 10(3) of Directive 
93/98 does not preclude a provision of 
national law which lays down a limited 
period in which sound-recording media 
may be distributed by persons who, by 
reason of the expiry of the rights 
relating to those media under previous 
legislation, had been able to reproduce 
and market them before the subsequent 
legislation entered into force. Such 
legislation satisfies the obligation 
imposed on the Member States to 
adopt measures to protect acquired 
rights of third parties and, by thus 
limiting that protection with regard to 
the distribution of sound-recording 
media, meets the need to circumscribe 
a provision of that kind, which must 
necessarily be transitional in order not 
to prevent the application of the new 
terms of protection of copyright and 
related rights on the date laid down by 
the Directive, that being the Directive's 
principal objective. 
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