General
3 pending referralsReferral C-182/24 (SACD and Others, 5 Mar 2024) 
Referral C-795/23 (konektra, 21 Dec 2023)
Referral C-580/23 (Mio and Others, 21 Sep 2023)
8 preliminary rulings
Judgment of 24 Oct 2024, C-227/23 (Kwantum Nederland and Kwantum België)
A situation in which a company claims copyright protection for a subject matter of applied art marketed in a Member State, provided that that subject matter may be classified as a ‘work’ within the meaning of Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society, falls within the material scope of EU law.
Article 2(a) and Article 4(1) of Directive 2001/29, read in conjunction with Article 17(2) and Article 52(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union,must be interpreted as meaning that, as EU law currently stands, they preclude Member States from applying, in national law, the criterion of material reciprocity laid down in the second sentence of Article 2(7) of the Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, signed in Berne on 9 September 1886 (Paris Act of 24 July 1971), as amended on 28 September 1979, in respect of a work of applied art the country of origin of which is a third country and the author of which is a national of a third country. It is for the EU legislature alone, in accordance with Article 52(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, to provide, by means of EU legislation, whether the grant in the European Union of the rights laid down in Article 2(a) and Article 4(1) of that directive should be limited.
The first paragraph of Article 351 TFEU must be interpreted as not permitting a Member State to apply, by way of derogation from the provisions of EU law, the criterion of material reciprocity contained in the second sentence of Article 2(7) of the Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, signed in Berne on 9 September 1886 (Paris Act of 24 July 1971), as amended on 28 September 1979, in respect of a work the country of origin of which is the United States of America.
Judgment of 11 Jun 2020, C-833/18 (Brompton Bicycle)
Articles 2 to 5 of Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society must be interpreted as meaning that the copyright protection provided for therein applies to a product whose shape is, at least in part, necessary to obtain a technical result, where that product is an original work resulting from intellectual creation, in that, through that shape, its author expresses his creative ability in an original manner by making free and creative choices in such a way that that shape reflects his personality, which it is for the national court to verify, bearing in mind all the relevant aspects of the dispute in the main proceedings.
Judgment of 13 Nov 2018, C-310/17 (Levola Hengelo)
Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society must be interpreted as precluding (i) the taste of a food product from being protected by copyright under that directive and (ii) national legislation from being interpreted in such a way that it grants copyright protection to such a taste.
Judgment of 15 Sep 2016, C-484/14 (McFadden)
Having regard to the requirements deriving from the protection of fundamental rights and to the rules laid down in Directives 2001/29 and 2004/48, Article 12(1) of Directive 2000/31, read in conjunction with Article 12(3) of that directive, must be interpreted as, in principle, not precluding the grant of an injunction such as that at issue in the main proceedings, which requires, on pain of payment of a fine, a provider of access to a communication network allowing the public to connect to the internet to prevent third parties from making a particular copyright-protected work or parts thereof available to the general public from an online (peer-to-peer) exchange platform via an internet connection, where that provider may choose which technical measures to take in order to comply with the injunction even if such a choice is limited to a single measure consisting in password-protecting the internet connection, provided that those users are required to reveal their identity in order to obtain the required password and may not therefore act anonymously, a matter which it is for the referring court to ascertain.
Judgment of 27 Jun 2013, C-457/11 (VG Wort)
With regard to the period from 22 June 2001, the date on which Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society entered into force, to 22 December 2002, the date by which that directive was to have been transposed into national law, acts of using protected works or other subject-matter are not affected by that directive.
Judgment of 16 Feb 2012, C-360/10 (SABAM / Netlog)
Directives: – 2000/31/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2000 on certain legal aspects of information society services, in particular electronic commerce, in the Internal Market (Directive on electronic commerce); – 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society; and – 2004/48/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on the enforcement of intellectual property rights, read together and construed in the light of the requirements stemming from the protection of the applicable fundamental rights, must be interpreted as precluding a national court from issuing an injunction against a hosting service provider which requires it to install a system for filtering: – information which is stored on its servers by its service users; – which applies indiscriminately to all of those users; – as a preventative measure; – exclusively at its expense; and – for an unlimited period, which is capable of identifying electronic files containing musical, cinematographic or audio-visual work in respect of which the applicant for the injunction claims to hold intellectual property rights, with a view to preventing those works from being made available to the public in breach of copyright.
Judgment of 24 Nov 2011, C-70/10 (Scarlet)
Directives: – 2000/31/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2000 on certain legal aspects of information society services, in particular electronic commerce, in the Internal Market (‘Directive on electronic commerce’); – 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society; – 2004/48/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on the enforcement of intellectual property rights ; – 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data; and – 2002/58/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 July 2002 concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector (Directive on privacy and electronic communications), read together and construed in the light of the requirements stemming from the protection of the applicable fundamental rights, must be interpreted as precluding an injunction made against an internet service provider which requires it to install a system for filtering – all electronic communications passing via its services, in particular those involving the use of peer-to-peer software; – which applies indiscriminately to all its customers; – as a preventive measure; – exclusively at its expense; and – for an unlimited period, which is capable of identifying on that provider’s network the movement of electronic files containing a musical, cinematographic or audio-visual work in respect of which the applicant claims to hold intellectual-property rights, with a view to blocking the transfer of files the sharing of which infringes copyright.
Judgment of 29 Jan 2008, C-275/06 (Promusicae)
Directive 2000/31/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2000 on certain legal aspects of information society services, in particular electronic commerce, in the Internal Market (‘Directive on electronic commerce’), Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society, Directive 2004/48/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on the enforcement of intellectual property rights, and Directive 2002/58/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 July 2002 concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector (Directive on privacy and electronic communications) do not require the Member States to lay down, in a situation such as that in the main proceedings, an obligation to communicate personal data in order to ensure effective protection of copyright in the context of civil proceedings. However, Community law requires that, when transposing those directives, the Member States take care to rely on an interpretation of them which allows a fair balance to be struck between the various fundamental rights protected by the Community legal order. Further, when implementing the measures transposing those directives, the authorities and courts of the Member States must not only interpret their national law in a manner consistent with those directives but also make sure that they do not rely on an interpretation of them which would be in conflict with those fundamental rights or with the other general principles of Community law, such as the principle of proportionality.
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