argomento: News del mese - Diritto Internazionale e Comunitario

Articoli Correlati: Afghanistan Papiere - copyright - freedom of expression

On 29 July 2019, in the sentence C-469/17, Funke Medien, the EU Court of Justice tried to answer the question whether a military relationship can benefit, like other literary works, from the protection of copyright governed in a harmonized manner by EU law. The sentence referred to the case of the c.d. “Afghanistan Papiere”, documents drafted by the German military authorities on Afghanistan, later released online by Funke Medien. The Court, after confirming the general principle according to which freedom of information and freedom of the press cannot justify a derogation from copyright in addition to the cases provided for by Directive 2001/29 / EC, stated that it is the duty of the national judge, in the case of “reports on the military situation” verify that the conditions for their protection based on copyright are satisfied, before checking if the use of such relationships can fall within the exceptions or limitations provided for by the directive 2001/29 / EC. In fact, the protection for this purpose operates only if they constitute an intellectual creation of their author that reflects the personality and the free and creative choices of the same.