Source: https://www.hlmediacomms.com/2015/01/28/eu-copyright-cjeu-ruling-on-jurisdiction-for-online-infringements/
Timestamp: 2019-07-24 00:09:53
Document Index: 307368611

Matched Legal Cases: ['CJEU ', 'CJEU ', 'CJEU ', 'CJEU ', 'UKSC ', 'CJEU ']

EU Copyright: CJEU ruling on jurisdiction for online infringements | Global Media and Communications Watch
Home > Copyright > EU Copyright: CJEU ruling on jurisdiction for online infringements
In a judgment handed down last week in the case of Pez Hejduk v EnergieAgentur.NRW GmbH (Case C 441/13)[1], the CJEU has held that the court of a Member State in which an allegedly infringing copyright work is merely accessible online does have jurisdiction to hear an infringement action.
And it also does not say, in terms, whether courts having jurisdiction to try copyright infringement actions on the basis of the defendant’s domicile can also hear claims for the same defendant’s equivalent acts of infringement in other Member States. In relation to the UK, this was answered in the positive by the UK Supreme Court in the 2011 Lucasfilm (stormtrooper helmet) case[2], but a ruling of the CJEU on this specific point would be very helpful.
The Judgments Regulation[3] has direct effect in all EU Member States and sets down common rules aimed at the consistent allocation of jurisdiction between Member State courts in civil cases which involve entities and acts/omissions in more than one Member State.
However, due to the fact that the photographs could be accessed, Austria was a place where the alleged damage may have occurred because Ms Hejduk’s copyright was protected there. In so finding, the court re-iterated its October 2013 ruling in Pinckney[4] (a case concerning the online marketing of CD’s bearing infringing copies of sound recordings which were sold into France) that the place where the alleged damage occurred may vary according to the nature of the right allegedly infringed but, in any event, the likelihood of damage occurring in a particular Member State is subject to the condition that the right whose infringement is alleged is protected in that Member State.
1. Available here
2. Lucasfilm Limited v Ainsworth [2011] UKSC 39
3. The Judgment Regulation has recently been “re-cast” by Regulation (EU) No. 1215/2012, which applies to proceedings instituted after 9 January 2015. This re-casting has not resulted in any material change to the key provisions decided on by the CJEU today. (In this newsflash references to articles in square brackets are to the equivalent provisions of the re-cast Brussels Regulation).
4. Case No C-170/12
Tags: Copyright, Hejduk, juridiction, online copyright infringement