Nintendo ruling confirmed lex specialis nature of Software Directive:does this have implications for UsedSoft exhaustion?
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| What to do on a rainy Sunday? Put your new nail polish on ... |
Earlier this week the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued its decision in Case C-355/12 Nintendo v PC Box [here], in which it held that - in certain circumstances - it may be lawful to circumvent a protection system.
However, what this Kat (and some of the readers she engaged in email correspondence with) found most interesting about this judgment was not really the interpretation of Article 6 of Directive 2001/29/EC (the 'InfoSoc Directive') that the Court provided therein, but rather its understanding of what protection is available for videogames, as well as the relationship between this directive and Directive 2009/24/EC (the 'Software Directive').
Starting with videogames, the Court made clear that these are not just software:
"[V]ideogames ... constitute complex matter comprising not only a computer program but also graphic and sound elements, which, although encrypted in computer language, have a unique creative value which cannot be reduced to that encryption. In so far as the parts of a videogame ... are part of its originality, they are protected, together with the entire work, by copyright in the context of the system established by Directive 2001/29."
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| Play your favourite videogame (not just software, of course) ... |
As Advocate General Sharpston noted in her Opinion, the Tribunale di Milano had already found that, in line with the case-law of the Italian courts, videogames such as those in issue could not be regarded simply as computer programs. Being complex multimedia works expressing conceptually autonomous narrative and graphic creations, such games must be regarded as intellectual works protected by copyright.
However, this conclusion is particularly relevant because it appears to narrow down the scope of applicability of the Software Directive, and - most importantly - confirms the 'lex specialis' nature of this directive.
As the AG stated in her Opinion (in terms which - by the way - are more explicit than those employed by the CJEU in its decision), the special nature of the Software Directive means that its provisions take precedence over those of Directive 2001/29/EC, but only where the protected material falls entirely within the scope of the former.
The implications of this statement seem particularly relevant for the videogame industry, in that they appear to limit the applicability of the (disruptive) conclusions that the CJEU reached in its 2012 decision in Case C-128/11 UsedSoft [on which see Katposts here and 1709 Blog posts here] to subject-matter that falls exclusively within the scope of the Software Directive.
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| ... Or contemplate exhaustion, as Shammai loves to do? |
In particular, it would seem that interpretation of exhaustion of the right of distribution pursuant to Article 4(2) of the Software Directive would not extend to digital subject-matter other than "pure" software.
This might imply the exclusion under EU law of the possibility of having a market for second-hand videogames which have "just" been licensed (and not sold) to the user.
IPKat readers will probably remember the Katpoll on UsedSoft [background information here], in which the question was whether the CJEU is likely to extend that ruling to works other than software. At that time, a broad majority of voters (57%) said that, yes, when given the opportunity to address this issue, the CJEU would say that exhaustion of the right of distribution as per Article 4(2) of the InfoSoc Directive encompasses both tangible and intangible copies.
However, following this week's ruling in Nintendo that stressed once again the special nature of the Software Directive, it looks like this conclusion may be more difficult to achieve in a future case involving the interpretation of this provision of the InfoSoc Directive ... But what do readers think?
