1 Acts of the institutions - Act amending an earlier provision - Application of the amending rule to the future effects of situations arising during the currency of the earlier provision - Principle of the protection of legitimate expectations - No effect
2 Approximation of laws - Copyright and related rights - Directive 93/98 - Harmonisation of the term of protection - Revival of rights which expired before implementation of the Directive - Protection of rights acquired by third parties - National legislation limiting that protection - Whether permissible
(Council Directive 93/98, Art. 10(2) and (3))
1 As a matter of principle, amending legislation applies, unless otherwise provided, to the future consequences of situations which arose under the previous legislation. Although the principle of the protection of legitimate expectations is one of the fundamental principles of the Community, it cannot be extended to the point of generally preventing new rules from applying to the future consequences of situations which arose under the earlier rules.
2 It is clear from Article 10(2) and (3), read together, of Directive 93/98 harmonising the term of protection of copyright and certain related rights that the Directive provides for the possibility that copyright and related rights which had expired under the applicable legislation before the date of its implementation could be revived, without prejudice to acts of exploitation performed before that date, while leaving it to the Member States to adopt measures to protect acquired rights of third parties. Such measures must be regarded as measures which the Member States are under an obligation to adopt, but the details of which are left to the discretion of the Member States, provided, however, that those details do not have the overall effect of preventing the application of the new terms of protection on the date laid down by the Directive.
Accordingly, Article 10(3) of Directive 93/98 does not preclude a provision of national law which lays down a limited period in which sound-recording media may be distributed by persons who, by reason of the expiry of the rights relating to those media under previous legislation, had been able to reproduce and market them before the subsequent legislation entered into force. Such legislation satisfies the obligation imposed on the Member States to adopt measures to protect acquired rights of third parties and, by thus limiting that protection with regard to the distribution of sound-recording media, meets the need to circumscribe a provision of that kind, which must necessarily be transitional in order not to prevent the application of the new terms of protection of copyright and related rights on the date laid down by the Directive, that being the Directive's principal objective.