THE COURT OF ROME RULES IN FAVOR OF SIAE ON THE ANTE CAUSAM PETITION FILED AGAINST SECONDARY TICKETING ACTIVITIES

03/02/2017

The Court partially agreed with the requests made by SIAE in the ante causam petition against the companies Nation 2 S.r.l., Seatwave Lts, Ticketbis Sociedad Limitada and Viagogo AG in relation to the unlawful on line re-sale of Coldplay’s tickets for the concerts scheduled on July 3 and 4, 2017 at San Siro Stadium in Milan.


 

In October 2016 SIAE filed, before the Court of Rome, an ante causam petition to obtain i) the seizure of the website identified with the domain names www.seatwave.it, www.ticketbis.it and www.viagogo.it (including the IP addresses associated with said domain names, present and future), and/or the seizure of the tickets, of the Italian concerts of Coldplay, offered on sale on these web sites for a higher amount than the offer price, as well as ii) preventive measures, against the companies Live Nation 2 S.r.l., Seatwave Lts, Ticketbis Sociedad Limitada e Viagogo AG, consisting in the prohibition to further commercialize, directly or through third parties, the above mentioned tickets – setting a penalty in case of non-compliance with the order.

The action of SIAE, supported by the intervention in the proceedings of Federconsumatori, was aimed at contrasting the “secondary ticketing” phenomenon, a commercial trend according to which the tickets sold by the reseller authorized by the organizers of the events (so called primary re-seller), once bought through the “official channel”, are sold again on the internet on e-commerce web sites for a price that is consistently superior if compared to the price officially proposed on the primary market.

The Court of Rome has declared that the individual and occasional reselling of concert tickets on the secondary market cannot be considered unlawful according to Italian Copyright Law – not even if the price made is consistently superior than the original one or even if the sale is made through on line web sites which are able to make the transaction easier – because of the lack of rules which recognize in favor of the artists the right to obtain an ulterior reward for any successive resale of tickets which entitles spectators to participate to their events. Equally, the role of hosting provider played by the companies involved should have been considered lawful in itself, as it was executed respecting both national and European rules.

That being said, the Court stated that the secondary ticketing activities executed by the companies involved in the proceedings should have been considered unlawful since, in the case in question, the re-sale of the tickets was made professionally and was organized by the same companies which set up the event and/or that managed the e-commerce web sites, implementing lucrative operations placed between primary resellers and end users, consisting in a substantial avoidance of the disposition made in order to protect the economic rights of the authors, causing an economic prejudice both to the authors represented by SIAE and to the end users.

In light of the above, the Court ruled partially granting the requests made by SIAE, issuing the sole preventive measures consisting in the prohibition to further commercialize, directly or indirectly, on the secondary market the Coldplay’s concert tickets, bought on on line and off line primary market, excluding instead the possibility to  grant the seizure as requested. Since the companies involved own web sites as hosting providers, the seizure of the tickets has been declared impossible because the inability to distinguish which tickets were sold through these web sites between end users (and so licitly) or by the owners of the said web sites.

IL TRIBUNALE DI ROMA ACCOGLIE IL RICORSO CAUTELARE PRESENTATO DALLA SIAE AVVERSO L’ATTIVITÀ DI “SECONDARY TICKETING”

03/02/2017

La Corte capitolina ha ritenuto di accogliere parzialmente le richieste formulate da parte della SIAE nel ricorso cautelare proposto avverso le società Live Nation 2 S.r.l., Seatwave Lts, Ticketbis Sociedad Limitada e Viagogo AG circa l’illecita rivendita on line di biglietti per i concerti dei Coldplay previsti per il 3-4 luglio 2017 allo stadio San Siro di Milano.


 

Nell’ottobre 2016 SIAE presentava, di fronte al Tribunale di Roma, ricorso cautelare per ottenere i) il sequestro dei siti identificati dai nomi a dominio www.seatwave.it, www.ticketbis.it e www.viagogo.it (nonché degli indirizzi IP associati ai predetti nomi a dominio, attuali e futuri), e/o il sequestro dei biglietti, relativi ai concerti italiani dei Coldplay, proposti in vendita su tali siti a prezzi superiori a quelli offerti, nonché ii) l’inibitoria, ai danni delle società resistenti Live Nation 2 S.r.l., Seatwave Lts, Ticketbis Sociedad Limitada e Viagogo AG, di commercializzare ulteriormente, direttamente o per mezzo di soggetti terzi, i suddetti biglietti – con fissazione della relativa penale in caso di inottemperanza.

L’azione proposta dalla SIAE, sostenuta con intervento adesivo dipendente anche da Federconsumatori, mirava a combattere il fenomeno del “secondary ticketing”, pratica commerciale per cui i biglietti messi in vendita dai rivenditori autorizzati dagli organizzatori degli eventi (cosiddetti rivenditori primari), una volta acquistati tramite il “canale primario”, vengono poi nuovamente commercializzati su piattaforme di commercio elettronico ad un prezzo notevolmente superiore rispetto a quello ufficiale praticato sul mercato primario.

Il Tribunale romano ha dichiarato che la rivendita individuale ed occasionale (c.d. bagarinaggio) sul mercato secondario di biglietti di eventi musicali, non possa ritenersi illecito sotto il profilo del diritto d’autore – neppure se eseguito ad un prezzo notevolmente maggiore di quello originario e per il tramite di piattaforme di commercio elettronico in grado di agevolare le suddette transazioni – non esistendo una norma che riconosca a favore degli artisti il diritto a ricevere un ulteriore compenso per ogni successiva rivendita del titolo di partecipazione ad un evento che riguardi la loro opera. Parimenti, il ruolo di hosting provider svolto dalle società resistenti doveva essere ritenuto, di per sé, lecito in quanto eseguito in conformità alla normativa nazionale e comunitaria.

Ciò premesso, la Corte ha però affermato che l’attività di “secondary ticketing” posta in essere dalle resistenti nel caso di specie deve essere ritenuta illecita nella misura in cui la rivendita dei biglietti veniva svolta in maniera professionale ed organizzata dalle medesime società che organizzavano l’evento e/o che gestivano piattaforme informatiche di commercio elettronico, ponendo in essere una vera e propria attività lucrativa che si interponeva tra i distributori ufficiali e i consumatori, traducendosi in una sostanziale elusione delle disposizioni a tutela del diritto patrimoniale d’autore e quindi in pregiudizio economico sia per gli autori rappresentati dalla SIAE che per i consumatori finali.

Alla luce di quanto sopra, il Tribunale ha ritenuto di accogliere parzialmente le richieste formulate dalla SIAE, disponendo la sola inibitoria alla vendita diretta o indiretta sul mercato secondario dei biglietti dei concerti dei Coldplay, acquistati sul mercato primario sia on line che off line, escludendo invece la possibilità di disporre il sequestro nei termini in cui lo stesso era stato richiesto. Attesa la liceità dell’attività di hosting provider svolta dai siti, il sequestro dei biglietti è stato ritenuto impossibile da eseguirsi a causa dell’incapacità di distinguere quali biglietti fossero rivenduti per il tramite delle medesime piattaforme tra gli utenti finali (e quindi lecitamente) e quali dalle società titolari delle medesime piattaforme.

LGV PROVIDE IN-DEPTH COVERAGE OF TRADE MARK LAW IN LATEST CHAMBERS PUBLICATION

31/01/2017

LGV Avvocati have covered the Italian section of the 2017 Trade Marks Guide, published by Chambers&Partners. Attorneys Ms. Simona Lavagnini, Mr. Tankred Thiem, Mr. Alessandro Bura and Ms. Virginia Paparozzi delved in-depth on all aspects of trade mark law, providing both a theoretical and practical reference guide.


 

The Guide can be found at: http://practiceguides.chambersandpartners.com/practice-guides/comparison/28/783/E1537-O-1432-1454-1462-1466-1479-1486-1494-1499-1503-1506-1510-

LGV CURA LA SEZIONE ITALIANA DELLA RECENTE GUIDA CHAMBERS 2017 SUI MARCHI

31/01/2017

È stata pubblicata la Trade Marks Guide 2017, edita da Chambers&Partners, di cui LGV Avvocati ha curato la sezione italiana. Gli avvocati Simona Lavagnini, Tankred Thiem, Alessandro Bura e Virginia Paparozzi hanno approfondito tutti gli aspetti relativi ai marchi, fornendo un quadro completo di riferimento sia dal punto di vista teorico che pratico.


 

La Guida è disponibile su: http://practiceguides.chambersandpartners.com/practice-guides/comparison/28/783/E1537-O-1432-1454-1462-1466-1479-1486-1494-1499-1503-1506-1510-

COURT OF JUSTICE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION: AN OPERATOR WHO PROVIDES ACCESS TO A WI-FI NETWORK IS ALSO SUBJECT TO AN OBLIGATION TO PREVENT INFRINGEMENTS OF COPYRIGHT

25/01/2017

A private person operating a Wi-Fi network with internet access, albeit not directly responsible for copyright infringements carried out by third parties, may be ordered to prevent such third parties from making available to the public a certain work or parts of it protected by copyright, if said person has the option of choosing the technical measures necessary for conforming to the injunction, and even where such choice consists in no more than protecting the Internet connection with a password.


 

With judgment of 15 September 2016 in case C-484/14, the Court of Justice of the European Union affirmed, among other things, the principle that a private person operating a Wi-Fi network with internet access may be subject to an order to prevent third parties from making available to the public a certain work protected by copyright, if such person can adopt the technical measures required for conforming to the injunction. The issue becomes relevant when thinking about a private person operating a Wi-Fi network with internet access (in the case scrutinized by the Court it was one Mr. Tobias Mc Fadden) who not only directly takes part in the infringement of a third party copyright (as an “active” service provider, capable of memorizing and re-transmitting the infringing information, would be able to) but also exercises a function of “mere conduit” of information conveyed by others (and therefore enacts a technical, automatic and passive process for the transmission of the required information).

Among the issues submitted to the Court of Justice by the Regional Tribunal I of Munich was that of the interpretation of directive 2000/31, and more precisely whether it should be understood as establishing an impediment for issuing an injunction to obligate a person who provides access to a free Wi-Fi network from stopping third parties who make available to the public, via the Internet connection and on a sharing (peer-to-peer) platform, a specific work or parts of it protected by copyright, when the provider can choose the technical measures required for conforming the injunction. The technical measures suggested by the German Regional Tribunal included shutting down the Internet connection, protecting it with a password and examining all the information conveyed through the connection.

With regard to the technical measures that may be adopted by the network access provider, the Court initially denied that a supervision of the entirety of the conveyed information could be imposed, in that such measure would contrast with the provisions set out in article 15, para. 1, of Directive 2000/31, which, particularly with regard to providers of access to a communication network, prevents the imposition of a general obligation of supervision on conveyed information. With respect to the option of completely shutting down the Internet connection, the Court held that its implementation would result in a serious violation of the Internet access provider’s right to free trade, in so far as the provider would unfairly be prevented from carrying on its activity. However, the Court also held that the provider must adopt adequate measures, having regard to a proper balancing of the relevant fundamental rights (right to free trade, freedom of information and copyright). The technical measures that may be imposed on the service provider must be sufficiently effective to prevent or, at least, make it difficult to carry out infringements of third party copyright of the work being transmitted via the Wi-Fi network. To that end, the measure involving protection of the Internet connection with a password may discourage users of the connection from infringing copyright or related rights, in so far as said users would be obliged to reveal their identity for the purpose of obtaining the password and thus preventing them from proceeding anonymously.

For these reasons, the Court of Justice ruled on the preliminary issue by holding that a private person operating a Wi-Fi network with internet access may be ordered to adopt reasonable technical measures that are necessary for preventing third parties from making available to the public a specific work protected by copyright. However, the Court specified that the technical measures imposed on the Internet connection provider must be evaluated by the judge on a case-by-case.