Fair Use

On November 15, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc., No. 18-956. The two questions presented before the Court are (1) whether “copyright protection extends to a software interface,” and (2) whether, as the jury found, that Google’s “use of a software interface in the context of a creating a new computer program constitutes fair use.”…
Continue Reading Certiorari Granted in Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc.

On 9 April 2019, the European Data Protection Board (“EDPB”) adopted new guidelines “on the processing of personal data under Article 6(1)(b) GDPR in the context of the provision of online services to data subjects.”

In general, the GDPR requires that processing of personal data be justified under a legal basis in Article 6 GDPR.  One such legal basis is Article 6(1)(b), which covers data processing that is “necessary for the performance of a contract to which the data subject is party or in order to take steps at the request of the data subject prior to entering into a contract.”  The new EDPB guidelines consider the meaning of this basis, and in particular whether it can be used as the basis for data processing by online services for purposes such as service improvement, fraud prevention, targeted advertising, and service personalization.
Continue Reading EDPB Begins Consultation on New Guidelines on Use of the “Performance of a Contract” GDPR Legal Basis by Online Services

On 29 October 2013, the Republic of Ireland’s Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (DJEI) published a report containing proposed amendments to its copyright laws, named “Modernising Copyright” (“the Report”).  Taking account of submissions received during a public consultation that ran between February and May 2012, the DJEI’s Copyright Review Committee (CRC) uses the Report to recommend a series of amendments to the Irish Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000 (CRRA).

Some of the Report’s key findings and recommendations are outlined below.…

Continue Reading Ireland Proposes Amendments to Copyright Law

A pair of recent decisions—one involving a work of street art used by the band Green Day for an in-concert video; the other about a single line from a William Faulkner novel paraphrased in a Woody Allen film—offer two distinct examples of the important role that copyright’s fair use doctrine plays in today’s popular media.
Continue Reading Fair Uses Big and Small in Recent Copyright Cases