NIPC Law

Vinyl Record Author Evan-Amos Licence Dedicated to the public by the author Source Phonograph Record Jane Lambert Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (HH Judge Hacon)   FBT Productions, LLC v Let Them Eat Vinyl Distribution Ltd and another [2019] EWHC 829 (IPEC) This was a claim for infringement of copyright  in the sound recording of an album called Infinite by Marshall Bruce Mathers III who is better known as Eminem . The claimant, a Detroit record company, alleged that the first defendant had made vinyl copies of Infinite which it supplied to the second defendant for resale to the public. Neither defendant denied those acts but they challenged the claimant's claim to copyright and the second defendant denied that it knew or had reason to believe that the items that it sold were infringing copies. The Issues The action came on for trial before His Honour Judge Hacon.  At paragraph [5] of his judgment, he identified three issues in dis...

The  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988  ( "CDPA" ) proscribes 8 separate acts of secondary infringement: importing infringing copies possessing or dealing with such copies providing means for making such copies transmitting a copyright work over a telecommunications system permitting premises to be used for an infringing performance providing apparatus for such infringement permitting such apparatus to be brought onto premises, and supplying a sound recording or film for an infringing performance. An essential ingredient of all those acts is some actual or imputed knowledge primary infringement  of copyright. Importing Infringing Copies S.22 of the CDPA provides that copyright is infringed by importing into the United Kingdom otherwise than for private and domestic use an article in the knowledge or with reason to believe that it is an infringing copy of a copyright work. An "infringing copy" is defined by s.27 (2) as an article whose making constituted an inf...