We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 December 2022
A.1. BASE CASE
From 1980 to 2004, Dr Silver and his colleagues have published their scientific articles in the periodicals of ‘Big Publishing House, Inc.’. For the publication of each article, ‘Big Publishing House, Inc.’ required that the authors transfer ‘all rights with respect to modes of exploitation now known or to be discovered’ to the publisher. In 2004, Dr Silver, along with several of his colleagues, stopped publishing their scientific findings with ‘Big Publishing House, Inc.’ in reaction to the publisher’s very strict licensing conditions. They now decide to make all their publications available on their institute’s webpage under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike licence. Not only do they make their most recent articles available on the website, they also include the full text of the articles that were previously published by ‘Big Publishing House, Inc.’. On the website, the papers are freely accessible, provided that the user accepts the licence conditions by clicking ‘I agree’ in the dialogue box on their screen. Contrary to the licence used by ‘Big Publishing House, Inc.’, the Creative Commons licence allows authors to publish their work on the Internet, and to use it for any purpose, including for educational purposes. The licence also allows anyone to reproduce, modify and communicate the paper freely for strictly non-commercial purposes, provided that proper credit is given, and that any redistribution of the paper occurs under the same licence conditions.
‘Big Publishing House, Inc.’ has got wind of Dr Silver’s action and claims an injunction against the making available of the articles on the website. Will an injunction be granted?
A.2. COUNTRY REPORTS
(1) BELGIUM
I. Operative Rules
‘Big Publishing House, Inc.’ will not be granted an injunction.
II. Descriptive Formants
The final paragraph of Article 3§1 BCA (Art. XI.167§1 6° BCEL) states: ‘Notwithstanding any provision to the contrary, the assignment of rights in respect of as yet unknown forms of exploitation shall be null and void.’ The clause obliging authors to transfer their rights on modes of exploitation yet to be discovered will therefore be null in Belgium.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
