Tuesday 27 March 2012

Nil by mouth, as the word awaits an Opinion in Donner

In "The Fundamental Freedom of Furnishings", Hugo posted a short note on this weblog on Case C-5/11 Donner. The question on which the German Bundesgerichtshof seeks a preliminary ruling from the Court of Justice of the European Union is this:
"“Are Articles 34 and 36 TFEU governing the free movement of goods to be interpreted as precluding the criminal offence of aiding and abetting the prohibited distribution of copyright-protected works resulting from the application of national criminal law where, on a cross-border sale of a work that is copyright protected in Germany
—that work is taken to Germany from a Member State of the European Union and de facto power of disposal thereof is transferred in Germany,
—but the transfer of ownership took place in the other Member State in which copyright protection for the work did not exist or was unenforceable?”".
Advocate General Jääskinen will be delivering an Opinion this Thursday. If you're lucky you may even get to find out what that Opinion is all about because, while the language of the reference is given as German, the Curia websites currently records the language of the Opinion as "Nil".

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