The CJEU Judgment in Ranks and Vasilevics: You Can Buy a Used License, but Will a Copy Follow?
Holm, C. (ed.) (2019). Secure Digitalisation. Nordic Yearbook of Law and Informatics 2016- 2018. Poseidon Förlag AB
5 Pages Posted: 18 May 2019
Date Written: April 16, 2019
Abstract
In October 2016, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivered the second of the two judgments interpreting the exhaustion provisions under the Software Directive. In Ranks and Vasilevics case the Court examined whether a lawful acquirer of a copy of a computer programme could rely on the copyright exhaustion to resell a backup copy of such a computer programme. The case has so far received limited attention in the legal scholarship. At first glance, its application seems to be rather narrow and based largely on the findings in the landmark UsedSoft judgment. Nevertheless, the author argues that Ranks and Vasilevics judgment is of significance and leads to some interesting questions of its practical application.
Keywords: copyright exhaustion, distribution, software
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation