Source: EURLEX
Language: en
Format: md

[**Avis juridique important**](../../../editorial/legal_notice.htm)

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# 61986J0158

**Judgment of the Court of 17 May 1988. - Warner Brothers Inc. and Metronome Video ApS v Erik Viuff Christiansen. - Reference for a preliminary ruling: Østre Landsret - Denmark. - Copyright - Objection to the hiring-out of video-cassettes. - Case 158/86.** 
  
*European Court reports 1988 Page 02605  
 Swedish special edition Page 00465  
 Finnish special edition Page 00471*

  

[Summary](#SM)  
[Parties](#I1)  
[Grounds](#MO)  
[Decision on costs](#CO)  
[Operative part](#DI)

## Keywords

  
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Free movement of goods - Industrial and commercial property - Copyright - National legislation giving the author of a video-cassette the right to prevent it from being hired out - Application to a case where a video-cassette, marketed with the consent of the author, is imported from a Member State which does not recognize that right - Permissible

( EEC Treaty, Arts 30 and 36 )*

## Summary

  
*Articles 30 and 36 of the Treaty do not prohibit the application of national legislation which gives an author the right to make the hiring-out of video-cassettes subject to his permission, when the video-cassettes in

question have already been put into circulation with his consent in another Member State whose legislation enables the author to control the initial sale, without giving him the right to prohibit hiring-out .

Such legislation, which, in so far as it applies without distinction to video-cassettes produced in situ and video-cassettes imported from another Member State, does not operate any arbitrary discrimination in trade between Member States, is justified on grounds of the protection of industrial and commercial property - including, in the context of Article 36, literary and artistic property .

The right to prohibit the hiring-out of a video-cassette is bound up with the essential rights of the author, namely the exclusive right of performance and the exclusive right of reproduction, which the Treaty did not intend to call in question . The right is necessary in order to guarantee to makers of films a satisfactory remuneration on the specific rental market which is distinct from the sales market and the size of which - owing to developments in technology - offers great potential as a source of revenue . The fact that an author has put video-cassettes into circulation in a Member State which does not provide specific protection for the right to hire them out should not, therefore, have repercussions on the right conferred on that same author by the legislation of another Member State to restrain, in that State, the hiring-out of those video-cassettes .*

## Parties

[Top](#document1)