Source: https://elawnora.blogspot.com/2018/07/
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 08:54:43+00:00

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The relevance of the fashion industry to world economies has grown over time. Today it equals 2% of world's Gross Domestic Product.
A phenomenon that has really boomed over the past few years is that of 'fast fashion', which is characterized - also raising a number of concerns, including sustainability (or lack thereof) - by very rapid production cycles, low cost and prices, and items 'inspired' - see, eg, Saint Laurent/Zara, Gucci/Forever 21, Acne/Zara - by looks seen on catwalks or those worn by celebrities.
According to statistics, fast fashion items are worn less than 5 times. Hence, also the 'wearing' cycle is short-lived.
But when does inspiration translate to an actual IP infringement? And is it worth it - or even altogether possible from a legal standpoint - for, say, a fashion house to take action in an attempt to repress the production and sale of garments that look a bit too similar to the real thing?
Marni's unregistered Community design right concerning its winter sandal FUSSBET, first disclosed in February 2014.
It was entitled to receive compensation for the entire amount of the damages suffered in the territory of the EU due to Zara's infringements.
The defendants sought the dismissal of the action, also submitting that the Italian court would lack jurisdiction under Article 8(1) of Regulation 6/02 (Community Design Regulation) over defendants established abroad, and that this would be in line with the position of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).
First, the Court addressed the claim that it would lack jurisdiction in relation to foreign defendants.
It rejected this claim, holding that jurisdiction would subsist under Article 8(1) No 1 of the Brussels I Regulation recast. This provision states that person domiciled in a Member State may also be sued "where he is one of a number of defendants, in the courts for the place where any one of them is domiciled, provided the claims are so closely connected that it is expedient to hear and determine them together to avoid the risk of irreconcilable judgments resulting from separate proceedings".
With regard to the merits of the case, the Court focused on the notions of individual character and informed user. With regard to the latter, the Court recalled the definition as provided by the CJEU in PepsiCo. With regard to the former, it noted how account should be taken of the degree of freedom of the designer, as required under Article 6 of Regulation 6/02.
In the case at issue such freedom would not be really influenced by functional aspects (which relate to the shape of the human body) but rather by the [note: all translations from Italian are mine] "extremely crowded character of the clothing sector (in particular, jeans)". It follows that "modest differences which may nonetheless be perceived by the informed user as different from already known shapes may justify the validity of the right". In any case attention should be paid to the overall impression provided by the designs at issue.
The Court held DIESEL's rights over SKINZEE-SP2 valid and found that ZARA had infringed such rights. In relation to Marni's claim, the Court confirmed the validity of the unregistered Community design right for the statutory 3-year term, holding that "the appearance of Marni's sandal presents enough characteristic elements to produce an overall different impression in the sector".
With regard to the territorial scope of the measures to be adopted and the compensation of damages, the question was whether the court in Italy would have competence to rule also in relation to activities of a defendant domiciled in Spain for the same infringing activities committed outside Italy but still within the EU territory.
The Milan judges answered this point in the affirmative, referring to the recent CJEU decision in Nintendo v Big Ben [commented on this blog here], whose background proceedings were considered "entirely similar" to the present case.
Indeed such measure [award of damages] - which is an ancillary request to the one seeking declaration of infringement, rooted in this case within the jurisdiction of the Community design court under Article 83(1) of Regulation 6/02 - falls within the scope of Article 88(2) of Regulation 6/02, which states that on all matters not covered by it, a Community design court shall apply its national law and its private international law.
The Milan court held that this requires consideration - in line with the CJEU decision in Ergo Insurance - of the Rome II Regulation. According to Article 19 therein, for activities of ZARA ESPANA other than those which have given rise to the infringement on the Italian territory, the applicable law would be the Spanish one.
The Court ordered the defendants to cease any production and selling activities related to SKINZEE-SP2 and withdraw the infringing products form the market in relation to the entire EU territory (the expiry of the right over the FUSSBET sandal meant that no such order could be made). It also ordered that the proceedings continue in order to determine the actual amount of the damage to be awarded to the claimants, also taking into account Spanish law with regard to ZARA ESPANA's activities.
The decision of the Milan court represents one the first national applications of the CJEU ruling in Nintendo v Big Ben. It confirms that in principle a design court in a EU Member State has jurisdiction to consider remedies, including damages, also in relation to infringing activities occurred outside the territory where the court seised has its seat. May this be just the beginning of a new approach in the fight, among other things, against fast fashion?
The text of the proposed DSM directive has attracted significant attention since its release by the EU Commission in September 2016. Among other things, the provision in Article 13 (value gap or transfer of value) has been commented extensively. According to critics, this proposal – if adopted – would affect dramatically the functioning of the internet and introduce brand-new obligations for online actors (online content sharing service providers).
But would this be actually the case?
Compared to earlier versions of the value gap provision, the most notable elements of the JURI Committee version are probably those outlined below.
Non-commercial service providers (eg online encyclopaedias), providers which allow content be uploaded with the authorization of all rightholders concerned, providers of private, open source software developing platforms, and online marketplaces whose main activity is online retail of physical goods are outside the scope of the definition of online content sharing service providers and, therefore, Article 13 of the DSM Directive.
are under an obligation of transparency towards rightholders and users alike regarding the use and implementation of relevant measures.
are under an obligation to ensure that the implementation of the measures referred to in Article 13 is: (i) proportionate; (ii) strikes an appropriate balance between different fundamental rights protected by the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights; and (iii) is in accordance with the prohibition of general monitoring within Article 15 of the Ecommerce Directive.
must ensure that: (i) providers put in place effective and expeditious complaints and redress mechanisms to prevent misuses or limitations to the exercise of relevant exceptions and limitations (any complaint filed under such mechanisms is to be processed without undue delay); (ii) the measures adopted by online content sharing service providers to prevent the availability of infringing content be compliant with the GDPR and the Directive on privacy and electronic communications and require no identification of individual users and the processing of their personal data; (iii) users have access to judicial remedies to assert reliance on an exception or limitation; (iv) authors and performers, who do not opt for a non-exclusive usage right for all users free of charge, receive fair and proportionate remuneration for the exploitation of their works, including online.
The version of the value gap proposal approved by the JURI Committee moves from the idea that online content sharing providers make acts of communication to the public and are ineligible for the safe harbour protection in relation to their own copyright-relevant acts.
Article 13 of the DSM Directive would seriously impair freedom of expression/information, as well as data protection/privacy, thus breaching users’ fundamental rights.
The current legal framework – as developed at the level of both the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and national courts – seems to have moved already towards the direction envisaged by the value gap proposal. It may be indeed the case that Article 13, also if adopted in the form proposed by the JURI Committee, would not represent a dramatic shift from the way in which the law has developed up till now. In relation to critics’ legitimate and important concerns, guidance appears in fact already available under the existing framework.
The right of communication to the public within Article 3(1) of the InfoSoc Directive has been progressively construed by the CJEU through its nearly 20 judgments on this point. In more recent cases the Court has focused in particular and among other things on the ‘indispensable intervention’ of the user/defendant, and referred to the user’s profit-making intention.
In Filmspeler [here], the Court held that an intervention enabling a direct link to be established between those who make available infringing works and users of such works, “is quite different from the mere provision of physical facilities, referred to in recital 27 of [the InfoSoc Directive].” Such an intervention – made “with full knowledge of the consequences” of such a conduct – facilitates access to unlicensed content that would be otherwise more difficult to locate and triggers the liability of the subject who makes it.
Coherently with this understanding, in its 2017 judgment in The Pirate Bay [analyzed more in detail here], the CJEU concluded that the operators of an online platform may be liable for unauthorized acts of communication to the public.
The undertaking by the platform operators of indexing, categorization, deletion, or filtering activities – no matter how they are performed – excludes any assimilation to the mere provision of facilities. The making available and management of an online sharing platform must be therefore considered an act of communication for the purposes of Article 3(1) of the InfoSoc Directive.
Although the platform at issue in The Pirate Bay was (and still is) principally devoted to piracy, it appears questionable to hold the outcome of that case would be only applicable to egregious scenarios like the one at stake there. Acts of communication may be made also by the operators of other, non-piracy focused, platforms giving access to UUC. National case law has begun emerging and confirmed this point: a court in Austria (in the context of interim proceedings) has recently ruled that YouTube makes acts of communication to the public. The Federal Court of Justice in Germany is also expected to rule on whether YouTube may be regarded as primarily responsible (and liable) for acts of communication to the public in September.
Overall, the evolution – also at the judicial level – has been in the sense of acknowledging that certain platforms may have moved away from a nature of pure, passive hosts.
With regard to the unavailability of the safe harbour for hosting providers within Article 14 of the Ecommerce Directive to platforms liable for unauthorized acts of communication to the public, this should not come as a surprise (although in its original proposal the EU Commission suggested that the safe harbour could be still available to platforms making acts of communication).
The safe harbours in the Ecommerce Directive are only available to passive providers. This is clear from the language of the relevant provisions as well as CJEU case law, including Google France and eBay.
Furthermore, the Ecommerce Directive (Recital 44) explicitly excludes the applicability of safe harbours in case of direct infringements of mere conduit and caching providers in collaboration with recipients of their services. For hosting providers it appears fair to assume that the same regime applies. The safe harbour relates in fact to possible liability of a hosting provider on a secondary basis for third-party infringements, not direct infringements by the provider (Recital 46 and Article 14(2)).
Although some scholars have suggested a different reading of the Ecommerce Directive (holding that Ecommerce safe harbours would apply irrespective of the form of liability), the CJEU appears to have taken a different direction in The Pirate Bay. Unlike the Opinion of the Advocate General, the decision contains no references to the Ecommerce Directive and envisages further hypotheses of liability than what the Opinion does.
Lack of references to the Ecommerce Directive in that judgment suggests that the exemptions/limitations from liability envisaged in the latter would be inapplicable in case of primary infringement by platform operators. This is coherent with the idea that the insulation offered by the safe harbours is only available to information society service providers that act as mere intermediaries.
With regard to the suggestion that EU law prohibits the imposition of monitoring (filtering) obligations, this is true with regard to general monitoring only (as also confirmed in eBay and McFadden).
Some commentators have referred to the twin decisions in Scarlet and Netlog, arguing that the CJEU has clarified that an obligation like the one that would be imposed under Article 13 of the DSM Directive would be absolutely contrary to EU law.
It is suggested that this is an incorrect reading of those judgments, which are narrower in scope than what has been claimed. In fact, what the CJEU found incompatible with EU law in those case (see also the operative part of the decision) would be only a filtering system imposed on a provider that would: (1) filter information which is stored on its servers by its service users; (2) which applies indiscriminately to all of those users; (3) as a preventative measure; (4) exclusively at its expense; and (5) for an unlimited period, which is capable of identifying electronic files containing copyright material, with a view to preventing those works from being made available to the public without a licence.
In The Pirate Bay the CJEU held that liability for unauthorized acts of communication to the public arises in case of actual and constructive knowledge and – potentially – also in cases in which knowledge is presumed (in a GS Media sense). In this sense, operators of platforms with a profit-making intention would have an ex ante reasonable duty of care and be subject to an ex post notice-and-takedown system, which would also include an obligation to prevent infringements of the same kind, eg by means of re-uploads of the same content. This appears in line with eBay, in which the CJEU clarified the obligations of a ‘diligent economic operator’ and also held that an injunction against an intermediary may be aimed not just at repressing existing infringements but also preventing new ones from occurring. Also national courts have reached similar conclusions regarding preventing re-uploads of infringing content, eg in Germany and Italy.
This, in substance, is what the language of the value gap proposal also suggests and does not appear to be at odds with developments already occurred at the CJEU and national case law levels.
Finally, some have argued that the value gap proposal would ban memes and GIFs and ‘censor’ the internet. Yet Article 13: (a) requires undertaking a balancing of different rights and interests, and (b) is without prejudice to available exceptions and limitations (which remain optional for Member States to introduce, irrespective of whether the value gap proposal is adopted or not).
Some have also suggested that automated filtering systems are not in a position to determine whether a certain use of a copyright work falls under an available exception. Whilst this might be true (yet platforms that already have filtering systems in place are flooded with parodies, quotations, reviews, etc), the proposal also clarifies that Member States must ensure that systems to prevent misuses or undue limitations to the exercise of relevant exceptions and limitations are in place, together with complaint and redress mechanisms.
If there is a problem with copyright exceptions and limitations in the EU (and the freedom to make and post GIF and memes), this has existed for a long time, well before and independently from the release of the proposal for a DSM Directive [The IPKat discussed it here]. It is due to: (a) the fact that Article 5 of the InfoSoc Directive leaves Member States free to pick and choose what exceptions and limitations transpose in their legal systems (with the sole exclusion of temporary copies) and (b) as a matter of fact, national transpositions of Article 5 exceptions and limitations have been different across the EU, with the result – if one did not consider the work of the CJEU in this area – that there appears to be no real level playing field for copyright exceptions and limitations across the EU.
Finally, some critics have also noted that the obligations imposed on providers to prevent the availability of infringing content would be contrary to data protection/privacy principles and Article 8 of the EU Charter. This concern is difficult to fully grasp in abstracto, as the proposal refers expressly not only to the respect of fundamental rights but also to the GDPR and the Directive on privacy and electronic communications.
While the proposal in Article 13 (read in light of Recitals 38 and 39) raises practical questions (eg different approaches will likely be required depending on the type of content at issue, information regarding content will need to be provided accurately by rightholders to comply with the eBay decision, providers will need to make technical choices and adopt appropriate filtering systems, etc), some of the concerns raised against it relate to issues that have been already addressed within the existing EU framework, as also interpreted at the judicial level.
In this sense, the adoption of the value gap proposal would hardly signal a major departure from the law as it has already developed under existing legislative instruments: it would rather represent a consolidation and possibly a clarification thereof. While there is room to improve the text of Article 13 further, its main tenets do not appear at odds with EU law, including fundamental rights.

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