Exhaustion, essential subject matter and other CJEU judicial tools to update copyright for an online economy. (8th June 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Batchelor, Bill; Montani, Luca
• Is Part Of: Journal of intellectual property law and practice. Volume 10:Number 8(2015:Aug.)
• Page Start: 591
• Page End: 600
• Publication Date: 2015-06-08
• Subjects: Intellectual property -- Periodicals; Intellectual property -- Europe -- Periodicals; 346.048
• DOI: 10.1093/jiplp/jpv093
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1747-1532

Abstract

Abstract : How far the IP holder's monopoly should extend into secondary and subsequent dealings with a protected work is an old legal chestnut. Yet this question is at the forefront of a recent spate of judicial activism in the EU and some national courts. The challenge is to update copyright and other IP regimes for an online economy. Set against a backdrop of imminent EU reform proposals, this article charts the development of exhaustion and other concepts in the English legal tradition, through the changes wrought by EU law, and into the EU court's most recent precedents 1 changing the online IP landscape. The authors ask whether judicial activism on this scale is appropriate—upsetting long-held orthodoxies and established offline precedents—or whether it is better left to policy makers to forge an appropriate balance between protection and dissemination through democratic debate.