Source: http://eulawradar.com/case-c-11715-reha-training-communicating-copyright-protected-works-not-to-the-public-but-to-private-patients/
Timestamp: 2017-02-28 12:57:35
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Case C-117/15, Reha Training – communicating copyright protected works not to the public but to private patients | EU Law Radar
Posted on 9 July 2015 by admin	Reha Training runs a recuperation and physiotherapy centre for injured patients. A couple of the rooms in its centre were each equipped with a television set. Staff left these sets on for anyone in those rooms to watch television. The centre is now being sued for copyright infringement. It is alleged that these sets are communicating copyright-protected works to the public, and the centre has not paid for the right to do this. The centre denies any legal liability; in its view, its patients do not form a legally-relevant ‘public’.
Reha Training is a German company offering physiotherapy and health-related recuperation-services inside a centre which it runs in the German city of Leverkusen. Besides a number of treatment rooms, there are a couple of recreation rooms which are each furnished with a television set. The sets are left on for anyone in the rooms to watch television.
This fact has caused the centre to be sued for copyright infringement. The basis for the legal action is that television programmes contain all manner of copyright-protected works, and the centre has not paid for the right to ‘communicate’ those copyright-protected works ‘to the public’. This is contrary to the EU’s ‘InfoSoc’ Directive 2001/29 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society (OJ 2001 L167/10).
Article 3(1) of the Directive is entitled ‘Right of communication to the public of works and right of making available to the public other subject-matter’, and provides:
The centre says that there is no legal basis for demanding any money from the centre for there is no ‘communication to the public’. It points out that it is generally its patients who are watching the television sets. Its patients are there for medical treatment. In the centre’s view, their patients do not qualify as the ‘public’, as that term has been defined in EU law. Namely, in Case 135/10, SCF, EU:C:2012:140, the CJEU held that music on the radio that was being played in a dentist’s waiting room, did not constitute a ‘communication to the public’ because the people in the waiting room were not a ‘public’. Applying that legal principle here, the centre says its television sets are not communicating copyright-protected works to the public so no legal liability arises. No money is owed.
The dispute ended up in court and involved not only the centre but also various German bodies which collect monies on behalf of authors – those collecting societies being VG Wort, Bild-Kunst, GÜFA, VGF, GWFF and the GVL.
The Cologne court hearing the dispute identified the various criteria which the CJEU had set out in its case law surrounding the concept of ‘a communication to the public’.
It noted that the key hurdle to the rights organisations successfully establishing their case was the effect of the CJEU’s ‘dentist’s waiting room’ judgment in SCF, and the proper relationship of that judgment to others from the CJEU including, Case C-306/05 SGAE, Joined Cases C-403/08 and C-429/08 Football Association Premier League, Case C-162/10 Phonographic Performance (Ireland), and Case C-351/12, OSA (Ochranný svaz autorský).
The Cologne court did not know how to resolve the case partly because the CJEU’s ‘dentist’s waiting room’ judgment did not interpret the ‘communication to the public’ right enshrined in Article 3 of Directive 2001/29; rather, the CJEU in that case had been interpreting a right granted to performing artists under Article 8(2) of the EU’s rental and lending rights Directive 92/100, now Directive 2006/115/EC (OJ 2006 L376/28).
Consequently, the Cologne court decided to make a reference to the CJEU, and pointed out that there were a great many similar cases currently pending before the German courts.
According to the Curia website, the Cologne Landgericht has asked:
1. Is the question as to whether there is a ‘communication to the public’ within the meaning of Article 3(1) of Directive 2001/29 […] and/or within the meaning of Article 8(2) of Directive 2006/115 […] always to be determined in accordance with the same criteria, namely that
– the term ‘public’ refers to an indeterminate number of potential recipients of the service and, in addition, must consist of a fairly large number of persons, in which connection the indeterminate nature is established when ‘persons in general’ — and therefore not persons belonging to a private group— are concerned, and ‘a fairly large number of persons’ means that a certain de minimis threshold must be exceeded and that groups of persons concerned which are too small or insignificant therefore do not satisfy the criterion; in this connection not only is it relevant to know how many persons have access to the same work at the same time but it is also relevant to know how many of them have access to it in succession;
4. If the existence of a communication to the public within this meaning is confirmed for cases such as that in the main proceedings, does the Court of Justice thereby uphold its case-law according to which no communication to the public takes place in the event of the radio broadcasting of protected phonograms to patients in a dental practice (see the judgment of 15 March 2012 in SCF, C-135/10) […] or similar establishments?
Reha Training has already litigated a similar copyright law case in respect of the fact that its reception desk was within earshot of loudspeakers.
Furthermore, the Reha Training reference comes at a time when there is another reference about the proper scope of the ‘communication to the public’ right. The case is docketed by the CJEU as Case C-151/15, Sociedade Portuguesa de Autores CRL v Ministério Público.
According to the Curia website, the Portuguese Tribunal da Relação in Coimbra has asked:
1. Is the concept of the communication of works to the public within the meaning of Article 3(1) of Directive 2001/29 […] to be interpreted as encompassing the transmission of broadcast works in commercial premises such as bars, cafes, restaurants or other such establishments with similar characteristics, via television receiving apparatus, where the transmission of such works is amplified by speakers or amplifiers, thus constituting, in that context, a new use of copyright-protected works?
Update – 6 August 2015
The Portuguese reference from Coimbra has been decided by the Third Chamber of the CJEU in the form of a written order dated 14 July 2015.
The Grand Chamber is scheduled to hear Case C-117/15, Reha Training on 19 January 2016.
Readers of EU Law Radar who are interested in the concept of the ‘communication to the public’ might want to watch out for the ‘Königshof’ judgment that was handed down by the German Supreme Court a couple of days ago.
According to the German Supreme Court’s Press Release, a hotel does not need to pay a copyright collecting society where the television set in the room is equipped with an aerial in the room. The full text of the German Supreme Court’s judgment is not yet available on its website.
Update – 14 January 2016
Another preliminary reference has been made in respect of the concept of a ‘communication to the public’ in the context of hotel rooms: Case C-641/15, Verwertungsgesellschaft Rundfunk.
According to the Curia website, the Opinion of Advocate General Bot in the Reha Training reference is due to be given to the Grand Chamber on 23 February 2016. Barely has a month passed since the hearing.
The Grand Chamber is due to hand down its judgment on 31 May 2016.
The judgment of the German Supreme Court in ‘Königshof’ (see update 19 December 2015), has now been published on the Supreme Court’s website. The German Supreme Court decided that no preliminary reference to the CJEU was required.
A version of the CJEU’s judgment in Case C-117/14, Reha Training ECLI:EU:C:2016:379 is reproduced below. The reproduction is not authentic. Only the versions of the document published in the ‘Reports of Cases’ or the ‘Official Journal of the European Union’ are authentic. The source of the reproduction is the Eur-Lex Europa web site. The information on that site is subject to a disclaimer and a copyright notice.
31 May 2016 ( )
2 This request has been made in proceedings between Reha Training Gesellschaft für Sport- und Unfallrehabilitation mbH (‘Reha Training’), which operates a rehabilitation centre, and Gesellschaft für musikalische Aufführungs- und mechanische Vervielfältigungsrechte eV (GEMA), the collecting society for musical performance and mechanical reproduction in Germany, concerning the refusal of Reha Training to pay royalties on copyright and related rights in connection with making available protected works at that company’s premises.
German law 9 Paragraph 15(2) of the Gesetz über Urheberrecht und verwandte Schutzrechte (Law on copyright and related rights) of 9 September 1965 (BGBl. 1965 I, p. 1273), in the version applicable at the material time, provides:
‘The author shall have … the exclusive right to communicate his work to the public in an intangible form (right of communication to the public). The right of communication to the public shall include, in particular:
11 The rehabilitation centre operated by Reha Training makes it possible for accident victims to receive post-operative treatment on its premises with a view to their rehabilitation.
12 Those premises include two waiting rooms and a training room in which, from June 2012 to June 2013, Reha Training made it possible for its patients to watch television programmes on television sets installed there. Those programmes could therefore be viewed by those who were at the rehabilitation centre for treatment.
13 Reha Training never requested permission from GEMA to broadcast those programmes. According to the latter, such broadcasting constitutes an act of communication to the public of works belonging to the repertoire it manages. Therefore, it claimed from that company, for the period from June 2012 to June 2013, sums it considered to be due for royalties on the basis of the rates in force, and on failing to receive payment it brought an action before the Amtsgericht Köln (Local Court, Cologne) seeking an order for Reha Training to pay damages and interest in respect of those amounts.
15 The referring court takes the view, in accordance with the criteria identified in the Court’s case-law relating to the interpretation of Directive 2001/29, that the making available of television programmes by Reha Training constitutes a communication to the public. That court also considers that the same criteria apply to the assessment of the question whether there is ‘communication to the public’ within the meaning of Article 8(2) of Directive 2006/115, but that the judgment of 15 March 2012 in SCF (C-135/10, EU:C:2012:140), prevents it giving a decision.
18 Moreover, in that judgment, the Court ruled that usual patients of a dental practice do not willingly listen to music there, since they enjoy it by chance, but do not choose to do so. In the present case, the patients of Reha Training in the waiting rooms and the training room also view and hear the television programmes without any active wish or choice on their part.
22 By its first three questions, which it is appropriate to examine together, the referring court asks essentially, first, if, in a case such as that in the main proceedings, in which it is alleged that the broadcast of television programmes by means of television sets that the operator of a rehabilitation centre has installed in its premises affects copyright and related rights of a large number of interested parties, in particular, composers, songwriters and music publishers, but also performers, phonogramme producers and authors of literary works and their publishers, the question whether such a situation constitutes a ‘communication to the public’ must be determined with regard to both Article 3(1) of Directive 2001/29 and Article 8(2) of Directive 2006/115 or only one of those provisions and, second, whether the existence of such communication must be determined with regard to the same criteria. It also asks whether such a broadcast constitutes an ‘act of communication to the public’ within the meaning of one and/or the other of those provisions.
29 It is true, as is clear from a comparison of Article 3(1) of Directive 2001/29 and Article 8(2) of Directive 2006/115, that the concept of ‘communication to the public’ appearing in those provisions is used in contexts which are not the same and pursue objectives which, while similar, are nonetheless different to some extent (see, to that effect, judgment of 15 March 2012 in SCF, C‑135/10, EU:C:2012:140, paragraph 74).
30 Under Article 3(1) of Directive 2001/29, authors have a right which is preventive in nature and allows them to intervene, between possible users of their work and the communication to the public which such users might contemplate making, in order to prohibit such use. On the other hand, under Article 8(2) of Directive 2006/115, performers and producers of phonograms have a right which is compensatory in nature, which is not liable to be exercised before a phonogram published for commercial purposes, or a reproduction of such a phonogram, has been used for communication to the public by a user (see, to that effect, judgment of 15 March 2012 in SCF, C‑135/10, EU:C:2012:140, paragraph 75).
33 It follows from the foregoing that, in a case such as that in the main proceedings, concerning the broadcast of television programmes which allegedly affects not only copyright but also, inter alia, the rights of performers or phonogramme producers, both Article 3(1) of Directive 2001/29 and Article 8(2) of Directive 2006/115 must be applied, giving the concept of ‘communication to the public’ in both those provisions the same meaning.
35 In that connection, the Court has already held that, in order to determine whether there has been a communication to the public, account has to be taken of several complementary criteria, which are not autonomous and are interdependent. Since those criteria may, in different situations, be present to widely varying degrees, they must be applied individually and in their interaction with one another (see, to that effect, judgment of 15 March 2012 in Phonographic Performance (Ireland), C‑162/10, EU:C:2012:141, paragraph 30 and the case-law cited).
38 That said, it must be stated, first, as regards the ‘act of communication’, that that refers to any transmission of the protected works, irrespective of the technical means or process used (see, to that effect, judgment of 19 November 2015 in SBS Belgium, C‑325/14, EU:C:2015:764, paragraph 16 and the case-law cited).
48 It is thus understood that the public which is the subject of the communication in these establishments is not merely ‘caught’ by chance, but is targeted by their operators (see, to that effect, judgment of 15 March 2012 in SCF, C‑135/10, EU:C:2012:140, paragraph 91).
51 Thus, the Court held that the broadcast of protected works has a profit-making nature where the user is likely to obtain an economic benefit related to the attractiveness and, therefore, the greater number of people going to the establishment in which it makes those broadcasts (see, to that effect, judgment of 4 October 2011 in Football Association Premier League and Others, C‑403/08 and C‑429/08, EU:C:2011:631, paragraphs 205 and 206).
52 As regards the broadcast of phonograms in a dental practice, the Court considered, by contrast, that that is not the case, since the patients of a dentist do not, as a general rule, give any importance to such a broadcast, so that it is not of such a nature as to increase its attractiveness and, therefore, the number of people going to that practice (see to that effect, in judgment of 15 March 2012 in SCF, C‑135/10, EU:C:2012:140, paragraph 97 and 98).
65 Having regard to all of the foregoing considerations, the answer to the first three questions is that, in a case such as that in the main proceedings, in which it is alleged that the broadcast of television programmes by means of television sets that the operator of a rehabilitation centre has installed in its premises affects the copyright and related rights of a large number of interested parties, in particular, composers, songwriters and music publishers, but also performers, phonogramme producers and authors of literary works and their publishers, it must be determined whether such a situation constitutes a ‘communication to the public’, within the meaning of both Article 3(1) of Directive 2001/29 and Article 8(2) of Directive 2006/115 and in accordance with the same interpretive criteria. Furthermore, those two provisions must be interpreted as meaning that such a broadcast constitutes an act of ‘communication to the public’.
In a case such as that in the main proceedings, in which it is alleged that the broadcast of television programmes by means of television sets that the operator of a rehabilitation centre has installed in its premises affects the copyright and related rights of a large number of interested parties, in particular, composers, songwriters and music publishers, but also performers, phonogramme producers and authors of literary works and their publishers, it must be determined whether such a situation constitutes a ‘communication to the public’, within the meaning of both Article 3(1) of Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society and Article 8(2) of Directive 2006/115/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2006 on rental right and lending right and on certain rights related to copyright in the field of intellectual property and in accordance with the same interpretive criteria. Furthermore, those two provisions must be interpreted as meaning that such a broadcast constitutes an act of ‘communication to the public’. [Signatures]
SBS Belgium (C-325/14) ECLI:EU:C:2015:764
GS Media, C-160/15, ECLI:EU:C:2016:644
Verwertungsgesellschaft Rundfunk, C-641/15, ECLI:EU:C:2017:131
The Opinion of Advocate General Szpunar in Case C-641/15, Verwertungsgesellschaft Rundfunk is due on 25 October 2016.
The CJEU’s judgment in Case C-641/15, Verwertungsgesellschaft Rundfunk is due on 16 February 2017.
The background to Case C-641/15, Verwertungsgesellschaft Rundfunk is now in its own post; see further, Case C-641/15, Verwertungsgesellschaft Rundfunk – is your hotel bill an entrance fee to watch TV?
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