EU Court Adviser Challenges Dominant Copyright Owners
A preliminary ruling by the Advocate General of the European Court of Justice appears to be setting the table for highly dominant copyright owners to be challenged if a competing company can find uses for a similar materials that produce "goods and services of different characteristics," according to WSJ Online [PREMIUM]. While the original challenger, NDCHealth Corp. has since moved on to develop materials distinct from a database originally created by IMS Health, the echoes of this decision, if passed by the full EU court, would certainly fall hard upon the ears of major content and software producers alike. Copyright protection continues to be an important competitive advantage, but in an era when the ability to copy and redistribute content at the user level is easier than ever and more premium content becomes controlled by fewer sources, professionals seem willing to challenge what copyright's real value has become at the institutional level.