Austrian Court Dismisses Claim Against Amazon for Payment of Private Copying Levies

An Austrian Commercial Court in Vienna has dismissed all claims brought by the collection society Austro Mechana against the online retailer Amazon for the payment of copyright levies for the sale of storage devices (eg, USB drives). This decision follows the 2013 judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), which was favourable to Amazon.

The Commercial Court applied the CJEU’s judgment and found that the Austrian law regarding the collection and distribution of private copying levies failed to comply with the EU’s Infosec Directive.  The Austrian law was not compliant with the directive because:

• The law did not provide an effective reimbursement right where the final use of the storage devices was not for private copying, as the reimbursement right was unknown to most market participants and repayment of levies was “excessively difficult”;
• The law did not sufficiently distinguish between lawful and unlawful private copying; and
• The distribution of levies to copyright owners was discriminatory and not directly for the benefit of rights holders, as 50% of the levies were to be distributed to social and cultural institutions (rather than rights holders themselves) and the distribution scheme was being used to favour Austrian artists over non-Austrian artists.

For related commentary, visit:  http://tinyurl.com/o8sagqp.