Private Copying | European Developments

Decisions of the European Court of Justice (ECJ)

In Europe, the private copying exceptions as laid down in the national laws of EU member states are based on Article 5(2)(b) of Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonization of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society (InfoSoc Directive).

National judges may refer preliminary questions to the ECJ with regard to the interpretation of the Directive. The ECJ has delivered several judgments on private copying exception in the past years. The answers given by the ECJ to the preliminary questions concern the cases listed below (the full texts of the judgments are available at https://curia.europa.eu/).

 

Case No. Date Parties Issue
C-467/08 21/10/2010 Padawan/SGAE Indiscriminate application of the Private copying levy
C-462/09 16/06/2011 Stichting de Thuiskopie/Opus Gmbh Cross-border transactions
C-277/10 09/02/2012 Luksan/Van der Let The author is entitled directly and originally to the right of fair compensation

C-457/11   C-460/11

 27/06/2013 VG Wort/Kyocera Technological measures, consequences of an authorisation to reproduce
C-521/11 11/07/2013 Amazon/Austro-Mechana Indiscriminate application combined with reimbursement scheme, payment of the revenue in part to social or cultural institutions, double payments in cross-border transactions
C-435/12 10/04/2014 ACI Adam/ Stichting de Thuiskopie Lawful nature of origin of the copy
C-463/12 05/03/2015 Copydan Båndkopi/Nokia Danmark Equal Treatment, reimbursement scheme, consequences of an authorisation to reproduce
C-572/13 12/11/2015 HP/Reprobel Allocation of fair compensation to publishers, copying of sheet music
C-572/14 21/04/2016 Austro-Mechana/Amazon International jurisdiction for national courts in cases regarding the payment of private copying remunerations
C-470/14 09/06/2016 EGEDA Fair compensation financed by General State Budget
C-110/15 22/09/2016 Nokia Italia/SIAE Ex-ante exemption and reimbursement scheme for professional use
C-37/16 18/01/2017 Minister Finansów/SAWP Application of VAT by CMOs in collecting private copying remunerations
C-265/16 29/11/2017 VCAST Limited/R.T.I. SpA Communication to the public or private copying, provision of a cloud computing service for the remote video recording of copies of works protected by copyright, without the consent of the author concerned — Active involvement of the service provider in the recording
C-433/20 22/03/2022 Strato AG/ Austro-Mechana Cloud  Lockers
C-263/21 08/09/2022 Ametic/Spanish State Legal foundation on which the one-stop-shop operate

Deciphering of the decisions (PC Forum, 02/2016 & 03/2018)

2016-2017 2013-2014-2015
C-572/14 21/04/2016 AUME/Amazon C-457/11 - C-460/11. 27/06/2013 VG Wort/Kyocera
C-470/14 09/06/2016 EGEDA C-521/11 11/07/2013 Amazon/Austro-Mechana
C-110/15 22/09/2016 Nokia Italia/SIAE C-435/12 10/04/2014 ACI Adam/ Stichting de Thuiskopie
C-37/16 18/01/2017 Minister Finansów/SAWP C-463/12 05/03/2015 Båndkopi/Nokia Danmark
C-265/16 29/11/2017 VCast Ltd/ /R.T.I. SpA C-572/13 12/11/2015 HP/Reprobel