Social media has long been about more than just posting vacation photos. Video is king, enriching your own content with snippets of music and making it more attractive is almost a matter of course. For influencers and anyone who uses social media professionally, so-called reels with background music are a must that increase reach

The question of whether artificial intelligence can be the intellectual creator of an invention arises repeatedly, not only in copyright law but also in patent law. Only a natural person can be an inventor. To date, this has been the prevailing view in the literature and has also been confirmed by corresponding decisions of the European Patent Office and courts in the UK, the USA and Australia.

The new Product Safety Regulation was adopted in May 2023 and Regulation (EU) 2023/988 on general product safety came into force in mid-June 2023. Its provisions will apply directly in all member states 18 months later, from December 13, 2024. The regulation will then replace the Product Safety Directive 2001/95/EC from 2001.

Axel Springer Verlag has filed a lawsuit with the BGH against the use of the Adblock Plus ad blocker for infringing its copyrights. The BGH has now postponed its decision in this matter as it is awaiting a decision from the ECJ in a similar case.

German politicians are also always tempted to give a law a special name in order to give it significance and gain popularity themselves. With a twinkle in the eye, it has to be said that the "ELVIS Act", which will come into force on July 2, 2024, deserves to be of outstanding importance simply because of its name. However, the content of the Elvis Act is also of great importance. The full name of the law is the 'Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security Act', or ELVIS Act for short.

As already reported here several times, the use of protected works for AI is restricted by the current legal situation. This also applies if AI only wants to use such works, i.e. intellectual property, for "training purposes", i.e. to improve the existing algorithms. The owner or the authorized licensee decides who may or can use the protected goods and in what form.

In this respect, the decision of the German collecting society VG Wort, for example, to include corresponding licenses in the exploitation agreement seems logical and points the way forward.

Now the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has filed a lawsuit against the AI start-ups Suno and Udio on behalf of Sony, Warner Music and Universal. The tools generated complete songs for users - with instruments, lyrics and vocals - which are offered in different versions according to musical genre and with good results.

In a groundbreaking decision, the Federal Court of Justice dealt with advertising statements regarding climate neutrality and established principles. Advertising with an ambiguous environmental term (here: "climate neutral") is regularly only permissible if the advertising itself explains the specific meaning of this term.

On June 1, 2024, the ordinary general meeting of members of VG WORT(the collecting society Wort manages the royalties from secondary exploitation rights to linguistic works, including radio and television, in Germany, Wickipedia) took place in Berlin. The topic of the future was AI licenses for companies and authorities.

AI is the buzzword in every conversation. If you believe the business experts, a company will fail in the future if it forgoes the capabilities and strengths of AI. However, the use of AI is not only associated with ethical issues, but also with legal questions.

"One of our main goals at eBay is to support and promote small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that want to expand their business by opening up new markets in the EU and worldwide. However, legislation sometimes creates barriers to international trade. A new EU Waste Framework Directive is currently in preparation, which would require small and medium-sized enterprises to undergo a variety of complex registration procedures before selling in the EU. These new rules are also known as Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)." (from the Ebay petition)

The background to this is that a new version of the Waste Framework Directive is currently being discussed at EU level.

On 24.04.2024, the EU Parliament passed the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CS3D), the EU supply chain law. This regulation requires companies to audit their supply chains to ensure that there are no human rights violations or environmental damage. Companies will soon have to prepare to meet these requirements.

The EU DSA was adopted in 2020 to create a comprehensive framework for online services. A further part of these provisions will come into force on 17.02.2024.

This applies to so-called hosting services.

In general, "greenwashing" refers to the attempt by organizations to create a "green" or "sustainable" image, particularly through communication and marketing measures, without actually systematically implementing corresponding, sustainability-oriented activities in their operational business.

The discrepancy between "to be" and "to appear" is already problematic under current law. At EU level, two directives on this topic are being worked on in order to put a stop to abuse. These are the Green Claims Directive and the Empowering Consumers Directive