Copyright Law

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Alice Chaplin

On 1 January 2021, the Trade and Co-operation Agreement (TCA) came into force and the general principles of EU law, existing EU treaties and EU free movement rights ceased to apply in the UK, after the transition period set out in the Withdrawal Agreement ended on 31 December 2020. Under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, EU regulations only continue to apply in the UK to the extent that they have not been modified or revoked by regulations under that Act.

The TCA itself had very little impact on IP rights – it provides minimum measures for IP…
Continue Reading Impact of Brexit on IP law

Alice Chaplin

No doubt the famous fictional detective would have been only too happy to lend his detective skills to get to the bottom of the copyright infringement case brought by Arthur Conan Doyle’s estate against, amongst others, Netflix and the producers of the recent Netflix film, Enola Holmes. The case was dismissed in December, presumably because the parties reached a settlement, although this hasn’t been confirmed.

Background

For those who haven’t yet worked their way through all of Netflix’s recent releases, ‘Enola Holmes’ is a film based on a book by Nancy Springer, and centres around the teenage sister of the famous detective, as she goes to London in search of her mother who has disappeared.

The film was released in September 2020, but three months before that, the Conan Doyle Estate (CDE) issued legal proceedings in the USA against, amongst other defendants, Nancy Springer, Netflix and the producers of the film, for (i) copyright infringement in relation to the film’s depiction of Sherlock Holmes, and (ii) trade mark infringement in relation to the use of the ‘Holmes’ name in the film’s title.Continue Reading Sherlock Holmes and the copyright infringement claim

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has delivered its judgment in Public Relations Consultants Association Ltd (PRCA) v Newspaper Licensing Agency Ltd and Others, Case C-360/13. The CJEU confirmed that internet users who read an article on a media monitoring website do not require a copyright licence from the publisher, as it falls within an exception to copyright infringement.

The decision provides reassurance to internet users that they can view media monitoring reports online without fear of liability for copyright infringement.Continue Reading CJEU rules no copyright licence required to view online media monitoring reports