Andrew Lykiardopoulos recently appeared in the Supreme Court, led by Henry Carr QC in The Newspaper Licensing Agency Limited v. Meltwater & the PRCA [2013] UKSC 18. The case concerned whether viewing or reading a web page could amount to copyright infringement. In particular, the case concerned the scope of the temporary copying exception to copyright infringement introduced by Article 5.1 of Directive 2001/29/EC. The question for the court was whether the copies of a webpage made on a person’s hard-drive and screen during browsing the internet fell within the exception to infringement.
The Court departed from the findings of the Courts below and held that such use would not amount to copyright infringement. Owing to the importance of the issue for internet users throughout the EU, the court made a reference to the European Court of Justice to ensure the uniform application of the law across the EU.