Butterfly Music Srl v Carosello Edizioni Musicali e Discografiche Srl (CEMED).
Date: 1999-06-29
13 As to that, according to settled case-law (see, in particular, Case C-415/93 Union Royal Belge des Sociétés de Football Association and Others v Bosman and Others [1995] ECR I-4921, paragraphs 59, 60 and 61), it is solely for the national court hearing the case, which must assume responsibility for the subsequent judicial decision, to determine, in particular, the need for a preliminary ruling in order to enable it to deliver judgment.  The Court of Justice may refuse a request made by such a court only where it is quite obvious that the interpretation of Community law sought bears no relation to the actual facts of the main proceedings or their purpose, or where it does not have before it the factual or legal material necessary to give a useful answer to the questions submitted (see, in particular, Bosman, paragraph 61).  Since that is not the position in the present case, the question referred for a preliminary ruling cannot be declared inadmissible for a reason relating to its lack of relevance to the circumstances of the case.
18 As the national court has observed, it is clear from Article 10(2) of the Directive that application of the terms of protection laid down by the Directive may have the effect, in the Member States which had a shorter term of protection under their legislation, of protecting afresh works or subject-matter which had entered the public domain.
19 This consequence results from the express will of the Community legislature.  While the Commission's original proposal for the Directive provided that its provisions would apply `to rights which have not expired on or before 31 December 1994', the European Parliament amended that proposal by introducing new wording which was, in essence, taken up in the final version of the Directive.
20 That solution was adopted in order to achieve as rapidly as possible the objective, formulated, in particular, in the second recital in the preamble to the Directive, of harmonising the national laws governing the terms of protection of copyright and related rights and to avoid the situation where rights have expired in some Member States but are protected in others.
23 Reading these various provisions together, it is apparent that the Directive did provide for the possibility that copyright and related rights which had expired under the applicable legislation before the date of its implementation could be revived, without prejudice to acts of exploitation performed before that date, while leaving it to the Member States to adopt measures to protect acquired rights of third parties.  In view of the wording of those provisions, such measures must be regarded as measures which the Member States are obliged to adopt, but whose detail is left to the discretion of the Member States, provided, however, that they do not have the overall effect of preventing the application of the new terms of protection on the date laid down by the Directive.
24 As the Advocate General has stated in point 25 of his Opinion, that solution is, moreover, consistent with the principle that amending legislation applies, unless otherwise provided, to the future consequences of situations which arose under the previous legislation (see, in particular, Case 68/69 Bundesknappschaft v Brock [1970] ECR 171, paragraph 6, and Case 270/84 Licata v Economic and Social Committee [1986] ECR 2305, paragraph 31).  Since the revival of copyright and related rights has no effect on acts of exploitation definitively performed by a third party before the date on which revival occurred, it cannot be considered to have retroactive effect.  Its application to the future consequences of situations which are not definitively settled means, on the other hand, that it has an effect on a third party's rights to continue the exploitation of a sound recording where the copies already manufactured have not yet been marketed and sold on that date.
25 Furthermore, while the principle of the protection of legitimate expectations is one of the fundamental principles of the Community, it is settled case-law that this principle cannot be extended to the point of generally preventing new rules from applying to the future consequences of situations which arose under the earlier rules (see, in particular, Case 278/84 Germany v Commission [1987] ECR 1, paragraph 36, Case 203/86 Spain v Council [1988] ECR 4563, paragraph 19, and Case C-221/88 European Coal and Steel Community v Busseni [1990] ECR I-495, paragraph 35).
28 Second, such legislation, by limiting in that way the protection of acquired rights of third parties with regard to the distribution of sound-recording media, meets the need to circumscribe a provision of that kind, which must necessarily be transitional in order not to prevent the application of the new terms of protection of copyright and related rights on the date laid down by the Directive, that being the Directive's principal objective.