European national news
Section snippets
Court of Justice finds that the functionalities of a computer program and the programming language are not copyright-protected
On 2 May 2012, the European Court of Justice found that neither the functionality of a computer program, nor the programming language and the format of data files used in a computer program in order to exploit certain of its functions, are protected by the special copyright regime for computer programs.
SAS Institute Inc. (“SAS”) started a legal action against World Programming Ltd. (“WPL”) for an alleged copyright infringement of its popular statistical analysis software, Base SAS. WPL had
The Danish domain name tribunal sees plenty of activity
The interpretation of a provision in the Danish Domain Act prohibiting abusive registration and use of domain names has been the central point of a number of recent cases before the Danish Domain Name Tribunal (“Tribunal”).
The vaguely drafted provision calls for conduct in accordance with “good practice” when registering and using domain names. What constitutes “bad” or “abusive” practice and thus a breach of the provision? That is to be determined by the Tribunal.
A number of recent decisions
Dailymotion condemned to € 270.000 euros for late removals of infringing videos
In a decision of the Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris dated 13 September 2012, Dailymotion (the French platform allowing its users to publish videos online) was ordered to pay €270.000 damages to the French TV channel TF1 and other plaintiffs.
Although the Court confirmed that Dailymotion must benefit from the limited liability regime applicable to hosting service providers (as provided by article 13 of the e-commerce Directive as implemented in France by article 6 of the 2004 Act on Trust
“Catch-All”-command for domains can infringe trademark rights
The Higher Regional Court of Berlin (Kammergericht) recently ruled on the question, whether the use of a “catch-all” command for domain names can constitute a trademark infringement.
The plaintiff holds several trademarks registered inter alia for “advertisement” (e.g. “weltkompakt.de”). The defendant is the owner of the domain “de.de”. The defendant did not directly use the plaintiff's trademarks but activated a program command, called “catch-all”, which automatically forwarded all
Online gaming advertising prohibited
Law Decree No. 158/2012, published on 13 September 2012 on the Italian Official Gazette, introduced a broad prohibition on advertising messages regarding gaming with monetary wins addressed to young people. In addition, the prohibition applies generally to all messages displayed/broadcasted/published or otherwise disseminated on the internet, TV, radio, or during theatre or movies plays in case the messages are characterised by any of the following elements:
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the message encourages gaming or
The Netherlands
No contribution for this issue.
Friederike van der Jagt, Associate, [email protected] from the Amsterdam Office of Stibbe, The Netherlands (Tel.: +31 20 546 01 12).
Cloud computing services
Following a review of the use of cloud computing based e-mail services, the Norwegian Data Inspectorate has recently published directions for the lawful use of cloud computing services.
According to the Inspectorate, the use of cloud computing services must meet the following requirements:
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A thorough risk and vulnerability analysis of the services must be carried out before the processing starts. The business must ask itself: what can go wrong, and what consequences this could entail. A renewed
Spain
No contribution for this issue.
Jorge Llevat ([email protected]), Partner and Jorge Monclús ([email protected]), Associate from Cuatrecasas, Gonçalves Pereira (Tel.: +34932905585).
Swedish investigatory committee report “App to Date”
A recent Swedish investigatory committee report analysed consumer protection on the market for mobile payments (e.g. purchases made via mobile phones and tablets and billed to the consumers' mobile phone bill). The report contains an overview of applicable Swedish legislation and interprets the legislation in the context of mobile payments. One new act is proposed pursuant to which consumers are granted a statutory right to prevent fixed term subscriptions from being automatically prolonged for
Enforcing the cookie monster: ICO to publish progress report
The Information Commissioners Office (“ICO”) has been tasked with enforcing the new cookie legislation in the UK since the expiry of the so-called “grace period” in May this year. It has now provided an update on the progress that it has made in relation to enforcement, responding directly to criticism that it has not been strict enough.
The new cookie law, introduced under the EU's Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive, requires companies to warn website users and obtain their consent
Mark Turner, CLSR Professional Board, Partner, [email protected] and Miriam Everett, Professional Support Lawyer, [email protected] from the London Office of Herbert Smith Freehills LLP (Tel.: +44 20 7374 8000).
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Mark Turner, CLSR Professional Board, Partner, [email protected] and Miriam Everett, Professional Support Lawyer, [email protected] from the London Office of Herbert Smith Freehills LLP (Tel.: +44 20 7374 8000).