Source: http://ipkitten.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/breaking-news-cjeu-says-exhaustion-only.html
Timestamp: 2017-07-26 04:43:51
Document Index: 36136583

Matched Legal Cases: ['CJEU ', 'CJEU\n', 'CJEU ', 'CJEU ', 'Art 5', 'CJEU ']

The background proceedings concern the unauthorised making and selling by Art&Allposters of altered versions of copyright-protected artworks, whose rights are managed by collecting society Pictoright. Art&Allposters used authorised posters of the artworks in question to transfer the images on canvas first, and sell them afterwards over the internet. It is worth adding that this process involved, first, the placing of a special cover on the poster and, secondly the transfer of the image from the poster to the canvas by means of a chemical process. Following an unsuccessful outcome at first instance, Pictoright won before the ’s-Hertogenbosch Court of Appeal. This court relied on the 1979 Poortvliet judgment to exclude that the right of distribution had been exhausted as per Article 12b of the Dutch Copyright Act and Article 4(2) of the InfoSoc Directive.
its judgment the CJEU followed the AG Opinion, though not in relation to the issue of the right of adaptation. Notably, the Court relied on
Recital 28 to the InfoSoc Directive and the WIPO Copyright
Treaty to hold the view that
exhaustion of the distribution right only applies to tangible objects:
EU legislature, by using the terms ‘tangible article’ and ‘that object’, wished
to give authors control over the initial marketing in the European Union of
each tangible object incorporating their intellectual creation. That finding, as the European Commission correctly
states, is supported by international law, and in particular by the WIPO
Copyright Treaty, in the light of which Directive 2001/29 must be interpreted
as far as possible ... Article 6(1) of that Treaty provides that
authors of literary and artistic works are to enjoy the exclusive right of
authorising the making available to the public of the original and copies of
their works through sale or other transfer of ownership. In that regard, the
significance of the term ‘copy’ was explained by the Contracting Parties by an
agreed statement concerning Articles 6 and 7 of the Treaty adopted by the
Diplomatic Conference of 20 December 1996, at which the Treaty itself was
also adopted. According to that statement, ‘the expressions “copies” and
“original and copies” being subject to the right of distribution and the right
of rental under the said Articles, refer exclusively to fixed copies that can
be put into circulation as tangible objects’. Accordingly, it should be
found that exhaustion of the distribution right applies to the tangible object
into which a protected work or its copy is incorporated if it has been placed
onto the market with the copyright holder’s consent." [paras 37 to 40]
This said, the Court
considered whether the fact that the object, which was marketed with the
copyright holder’s consent, has undergone subsequent alterations to its
physical medium has an impact on exhaustion of the distribution right. The CJEU
concluded that "the consent of the copyright holder does not cover the
distribution of an object incorporating his work if that object has been
altered after its initial marketing in such a way that it constitutes a new
reproduction of that work. In such an event, the distribution right of such an
object is exhausted only upon the first sale or transfer of ownership of that
new object with the consent of the rightholder." [para 46]
"Article 4(2)
of Directive 2001/29 must be interpreted as meaning that the rule of exhaustion
of the distribution right set out in Article 4(2) of Directive 2001/29
does not apply in a situation where a reproduction of a protected work, after
having been marketed in the European Union with the copyright holder’s consent,
has undergone an alteration of its medium, such as the transfer of that
reproduction from a paper poster onto a canvas, and is placed on the market
again in its new form." [para
course this case was not about digital exhaustion. However, by suggesting that
exhaustion under Article 4 of the InfoSoc Directive only applies to the
tangible support of a work, the Court appeared to imply that there is no such
thing as a general digital exhaustion under EU copyright. In other words: the
decision in UsedSoft [on which see Katposts here and
1709 Blog posts here] was
possible only because of the lex
specialis nature of the Software
Directive [which
the CJEU itself re-affimerd in Nintendo, here here and here]. Readers
will be aware that earlier this week, the Amsterdam Court of Appeal issued a ruling against second-hand ebook seller Tom
Kabinet [here],
although it refrained from addressing the issue of whether the InfoSoc
Directive allows such thing as a digital exhaustion.
this stage this Kat notes that the Art&Allposters ruling may have provided a (partial)
response to this thorny issue, yet the last word in this respect is probably
yet to be said, whether at the judicial or policy levels. A
more detailed analysis of today's ruling will follow shortly, so: stay
Case C-419/13 Art & Allposters International BV v Stichting Pictoright,
I tend to agree with Anon @08.51 that the reasoning behind the decision on the exhaustion of rights seems somewhat counter-intuitive. The court seems to be saying that if one takes, for example, an oil painting by a famous artist, the 'essence' of the painting which attracts the protection of copyright, resides in the canvas substrate, and not in the oil paint which records the creativity of the artist.And of course we still have the continuing uncertainty about the exhaustion of rights for intangible works which are not not software, such as ebooks, and lawfully obtained digital music and video files. Friday, 23 January 2015 at 10:05:00 GMT
Sebastian F S
Eleonora, I am not sure whether the court looks at "tangible article" and "that object" in a way that the exhaustion principle applies to tangible objects only.Para 37 and 40 state that exhaustion of the distribution right applies to the tangible object - but that does not exclude that it can apply to digital objects too (the decision itself doesn't cite AG Cruz' opinion AFAIK)?That said, it could have been nice to have clarification or obiter dictum re: digital exhaustion in InfoSoc.../s
Eleonora, when you do your fuller write-up could you explore further the ramifications for resale of physical goods? Personally I think digital exhaustion is a red herring here. More important to me would seem to be the impact on people's freedom to repurpose objects and make new things out of them - often highly creative acts in themselves. Where does this leave the "maker movement", people who sell repurposed goods on Etsy, etc? As the anonymous commmenter above said, where does it leave picture reframers?Also, on the judgment itself, how on earth does transferring ink from one surface to another result in a higher quality work? And if there is a quality improvement, shouldn't the person who made that improvement be the one who deserves to be remunerated for it?There is much in this judgment which would seem to stand in the way of creativity rather than promote it.
@Mark: I agree with you. Plus, the judgment seems to imply that it is only OK to create a work from scratch, which is not true at all in copyright terms. Friday, 23 January 2015 at 14:30:00 GMT
Not only do I think that Mark's comment of digital exhaustion being a red herring is wrong, I would posit that digital exhaustion will be THE critical point of debate - and not only for copyright, but for patent as well.The digital age threatens the very foundations of Intellectual Property - trying to pooh pooh it and place it to the side does no one any favors.
@Eleonora fully agree! Still, it seems like there is a backdoor open that the court didn't want to close entirely...@Mark, interesting aspects re maker movement. Re quality http://www.allposters.com/-se/services/canvas.htm ?
The Supreme Court of Canada dealt with an identical issue (to the adaptation question) in Théberge v. Galerie d'Art du Petit Champlain Inc. In that case the Court espouse the notion of format shifting as not infringing copyright so long as there was no copy made. As for the digital exhaustion, does this not create a distinction in the scope of protection afforded digital versus non-digital works? This clearly offends the notion of technological neutrality which makes a lot of sense in the copyright context. Saturday, 24 January 2015 at 14:21:00 GMT
@James Plotkin.I haven't looked up the case you cite, so forgive me if I have this wrong, but format shifting is not really the same as exhaustion of rights (at least not when viewed from the European perspective). Under EU law private users may, exceptionally, make copies of their legally owned media (whether analog or digital) for the purposes of format shifting, presuming of course no DRM is in place, and the work concerned is not software.As for your second paragraph, I wholeheartedly agree that copyright protection should be independent of the technical media, but one has to wonder sometimes how tech savvy the judges of the CJEU are. Saturday, 24 January 2015 at 16:20:00 GMT
James Plotkin,One problem (among many) is that the nature of digital works is that the act of local copying is inherent.The world wide web really does not magically transport you to the place of the original digital content.Each and every act involved with the digital world is an act in which copies of the original are replicated locally.Understanding what is actually going on is therefor critical when one considers how the impact of "digital" must be squared with existing IP law.When you buy a "digital" anything, there is no transport of an original digital work to you, but rather, a local digital copy is generated. You really only "buy" your local copy.Even more problematic, is that your local copy must be itself re-copied every time you "access" it.The meaning of "ownership," "selling," and "exhaustion" simply have not been fully nor adequately 'translated' into the new reality.If "exhaustion" retains its traditional meaning that the copyright owner has been given his asked for remuneration for the exchange of an "item" and that the receiver of that "item" then has full control over that "item," then because copying is a fundamental and necessary act for use of that "item," then the exhaustion necessarily releases any and all control over said copying.Of course, the fallout of this is that said copying of a digital work also brings about unlimited and perfectly seamless duplication that eviscerates the market of that first original. I would add that there exists no real ability to control this duplication apart from the necessary duplication that must be allowed with the digital work.And I would also proffer that is a business model issue.So we are faced with clinging to an old business model or eviscerating the meaning of exhaustion.Like it or not, the digital world advances (and as I have also posted, this advance imminently implicates not just copyright protection, but patent protection as well - how can you realistically enforce the exclusionary right to prevent "making" when the actual infringer is the end user sitting at home with her 3D printer making something from pure data? Do you give legal effect to pure data? Do you chase the "deep pocket" somewhere other than the end user?These are very real - and I would put it - THE critical questions that need to be answered.
Anon @16:46.Copyright law per se is not the means by which a rights owner's rights should be enforced; it merely provides the framework which allows a rightspowner to establish that infringement has taken place and that therefore they are entitled to some form of civil remedy. In more egregious cases the criminal law may also be involved.But even in the pre-digital age, copying a book with a photocopier, or an record with with a tape recorder were just as difficult to polce as the digital copying to which you refer. The difference lies in the scale (which is as much to do with the internet as it is to the digital technologies per se), so I agree with James Plotkin that the courts should approach the subject of exhaustion of rights in exactly the same way, irrespective of the technological process involved. To that extent, differentiating between software (a sub-set of literary works) and other types of eligible works just makes the law unnecessarily opaque and unwieldy. Saturday, 24 January 2015 at 17:07:00 GMT
Andy J,Thank you for the response.I cannot discern your meaning though in your first sentence. You seem to be wanting to insert some additional thought that is untethered to the points that I am making.Aside from that, you miss the fundamental nature of copying involved in digital works. It simply is not merely enough to say "a copy could be made with older items," - as it is mandatory that a copy is inherently made with digital items - such action is just NOT separable.In fact, your reply proves my point, as it is most assuredly NOT just a matter of scale.Thus your conclusion of "just mak[ing] the law unnecessarily opaque and unwieldy" does not reach.
Hi anon @19:00.The first sentence of my previous post was not as clear as I had hoped. My argument is that if there are deficiencies in a format (such as a digital file which is intangible) it is not the job of copyright to impose different limitations or reduced rights of ownership on the lawful purchasers of such products, just because the opportunities for copying are potentially greater.Your other point about the inevitable necessity of making intermediate copies of digital files in order to consume them (when they are downloaded or held in the cache of a device etc) is already addressed in the InfoSoc Directive 2001/29 Art 5.1 and confirmed by the CJEU in PRCA v NLA C‑360/13. Saturday, 24 January 2015 at 22:06:00 GMT
Andy J,As this happens to me at times, the link is not corrupted per se, but one must remember to add an extra space between a typed hyperlink and the punctuation at the end of a sentence (or between a hyperlink and open or closing parentheticals).For example:hyperlink_Period vs hyperlinkPeriod