Site access as a criterion for the jurisdiction of the courts in the EU.The Court of Justice in response to a request for a preliminary ruling by the French Supreme Court on the interpretation of Art. 5 Para. 3 of Regulation 44/2001 assumes that a harmful event may occur from the reproducibility of a work from a website accessible in the forum State.
Article 5 para. 3 of Regulation 44/2001 which interpretation was been asked from the French Supreme Court provides that “A person domiciled in a Member State may, in another Member State, be sued (…) in matters relating to tort, delict or quasi-delict, in the courts for the place where the harmful event occurred or may occur”.
This request was made to clarify the extremely important question of the jurisdiction of the courts in the EU regarding copyright infringement on the web. Could the victims bring an action against the violation in their country or they could do it only before the court placed on the territory in which is established or domiciled the violator?
The case:
The complainant who lives in France, claims to be the author, composer and performer of 12 songs that had been reproduced without his authorization and recorded on a CD in Austria. Subsequently the copyrighted works had been marketed by UK companies through various internet sites available for purchase also in France. The plaintiff brought an action for damages against the Austrian company before a French court for copyright infringement. The defendant challenged the jurisdiction of the French court arguing that the CDs had been recorded in Austria at the request of a UK company which marketed them through an internet site.
In response to the request of the French court ECJ explained that given the specificity of copyright which, unlike industrial property, is automatically protected and the fact that art. 5 , paragraph 3 lays down, as a sole condition, the existence of a harmful event, the same article does not require, in particular, that the activity concerned to be "directed to the Member State in which the court seized is situated".
In the present case the ECJ the likelihood of a harmful event arises from the possibility of reproducing the work " from a website accessible within the jurisdiction of the court seized."
The judgment:
In its judgment Pinckney v. KDG Mediatech AG of 3 October 2013 the ECJ argues that art. 5 para. 3 of the Regulation must be interpreted as meaning that “in the event of alleged infringement of copyrights protected by the Member State of the court seized, the latter has jurisdiction to hear an action to establish liability brought by the author of a work against a company established in another Member State and which has, in the latter State, reproduced that work on a material support which is subsequently sold by companies established in a third Member State through an internet site also accessible with the jurisdiction of the court seized. That court has jurisdiction only to determine the damage caused in the Member State within which it is situated”.
The Importance:
This interpretation of the European Court of Justice allows victims to take action more easily from their country in order to protect themselves from copyright infringement.
Sabina Popova
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