Something to read

It was only published this summer, but already "The Future of Copyright in Europe: Striking a Fair Balance between Protection and Access to Information", a report for the Committee on Culture, Science and Education - Parliamentary Assembly, Council of Europe by the noted scholar Christophe Geiger, has a slightly historical flavour to it, such is the rate at which events, thoughts, proposals and assertions continue to evolve in this very difficult area. Geiger, Associate Professor and Director General, Centre for International Intellectual Property Studies (CEIPI), University of Strasbourg, has tackled the subject with restraint and dignity -- two virtues that are in diminishing supply these days in the merry-go-round world of modern copyright. You can read the report here: it's not very long, but a lot of thought has gone into it.


Meanwhile the sixth and final issue of Sweet & Maxwell's bimonthly European Copyright and Design Reports for 2009 has now been published. Three cases are covered in this issue: one is the ECJ ruling in Case C-32/08 FEIA v Cul de Sac on the applicability of Community design law to commissioned works. The other two are both from national courts: the Gruppo C Art dispute from the Court of Turin, which asks the fascinating question as to whether an author's right subsists in artistic philosophy, and the Central Vista decision of a UK hearing officer on the test of who ir what constitutes an "informed person" for the purposes of that increasingly complex puzzle that calls itself design law.