Last March, the European Parliament finally approved the regulation designed to protect cultural goods against smuggling and to put a stop to a source of terrorist financing.
Before now, there were no universal EU laws governing imports of cultural heritage.
The only European legislation on the trade of cultural goods concerned exports and the return of objects unlawfully removed from the EU. Read more
On October 30th, 2018, the recent Beijing Internet Court heard its first case on copyright ownership and infringement, “Tik Tok Video” vs. “HuoPai Video”.
The case was filed on September 11th, 2018 by ByteDance, the parent company of Tik Tok, who initiated the lawsuit against the video platform HuoPai by Baidu Technologies. ByteDance contends that after a short video was shared on its “Tik Tok Video” platform, Baidu Technologies uploaded without permission and offered downloads of the video on its “HuoPai Video” platform. Tik Tok sought an injunction and damages of one million Yuan, plus an additional cost of fifty-thousand Yuan against Baidu. Read more
As of June 26th 2019, the Russian Federation will begin to enforce a newly-adopted bill expanding its legal protections to industrial designs under the “amendments to Part IV of the Civil Code”, most notably for the fashion industry.
In an effort to emulate the European Union’s robust protections for fashion designers and brands, Russia has made strides to open its market and secure its own group of designers to build up a presence in the global fashion industry. Recently with Russia’s ratification of the Geneva Act of the Hague Agreement, applicants have the option to seek design protection through the Hague System for the International Registration of Industrial Designs, instead of the traditional Russian national system of industrial design registration.
Banksy went to Court and partially won.
“Copyright is for losers” once wrote the secretive street artist ironically, however, a few weeks ago Pest Control (the company responsible for managing Banksy’s artworks) sued an Italian company for trademark infringement.
The Italian company 24 Ore Cultura organized an exhibition – The Art of Banksy. A visual protest – for Milan’s Mudec Museum, without having obtained any authorization from the artist, as disclaimed on the website.
The event opened in November 2018 and runs until April 2019.
The exhibition features 70 authentic Banksy prints and paintings, and its gift shop was selling a large variety of merchandise promoting Banksy imagery, including notebooks, postcards, bookmarks and diaries signed with the artist’s work.
Christie’s wins battle for a new interpretation of the “Droit de Suite” regulation in France.
A recent decision of the French Supreme Court[1] is going to overturn the law in France that requires the Artist’s Resale Right (Droit de Suite) being paid by vendors.
The resale right forms an integral part of copyright and is an essential prerogative for authors.
It is an unassignable and inalienable right, enjoyed by the author of an original artistic work, or their heirs, to an economic interest in successive sales of the work concerned.
The resale right is intended to ensure that the artist receives part of the resale value of a work of art. Read more
The trend is toward considering the exhibits provenance in museums and galleries across Europe
Working in The Hague, being involved in the subject of Art Law, my mind goes to the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict.
An excellent combination, working here where the first use of the term Cultural Property occurred in an international legal context.
However, what is Cultural Property? Read more
On May 25th, 2018 the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) entered into force. From that date forth, companies were required to comply with the text in order to best protect citizens’ personal data within the European Union.
In France, it is the French Data Protection Authority (CNIL) which monitors the compliance of companies with the Regulation and imposes appropriate sanctions. In fact, some major Web players have already been sanctioned by the Commission for the processing of individuals’ personal data.
On the third day of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to France, the French President Emmanuel Macron took the unprecedented step of establishing a united European front to compete with China’s global hegemony, specifically China’s One Belt One Road strategy. Macron invited EU leaders Angela Merkel and Jean-Claude Juncker to join the meeting with Xi. This meeting was referred as a “high-level meeting on the challenges of multilateralism” by the French government. The core of this meeting was the discussion of climate change and multilateral relations between Europe and China. Macron’s intention of forging a United European front upon Xi’s visit cannot be easily assumed, however, it can be assumed that Macron keeps a questioning attitude towards the two-way street of investment and trade between the Europe and China regarding China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Read more
In the discussion on blockchain technology, you may have heard of blockchain 
evidence technology. What is blockchain evidence technology? Well, it is a kind of electronic evidence, which contains the three characteristics, the same as normal evidence: legality, relevance and objectivity, as well as the third-party notarization, decentralised structure, timestamp record, low cost, high credibility and other advantages. Every time of access, change, etc. will have a record, so each action is very well documented. Read more
The Internet has become the second space in human life, changing people’s production and lifestyle, refreshing the concept of law, judicial practice and public demand for court services. The characteristics of virtuality, cross-regionality, and decentralization of the Internet have created enormous challenges to the existing legal theory and judicial system. Parties who are used to the traditional judicial rules and litigation methods are facing high cost and long process for distant disputes, which is not efficient at all, thus an online solution channel is in high need. These facts have made the Central Committee in China decide to set up more Internet court.
