The book is a novelty. For the first time the fundamentals of the performance activities of the German Society for Musical Performing Rights and Mechanical Reproduction Rights (GEMA) will be comprehensively presented, expertly explained and scientifically fathomed. In addition to the historical and legal basics, this especially concerns the presentation and elucidation of GEMA's "internal rules": The statutes, authorisation agreement and the plan of distribution. An overview concerning the practice of licensing will also be provided. Such a presentation has long since been a sought-after reference factor of practice and science. The reference work should provide those individuals entitled as well as users, supervisory authorities and courts - but also scholars - reliable information concerning the performance activity, and thus contribute to transparency.

Originally published in 1921, this book presents the content of the Yorke Prize essay for 1918. The text provides a concise discussion of the law regarding the purchase of goods in relation to the area of 'goods improperly obtained'. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the British legal system and the history of law.

Over the last decade, the EU has become a major actor in the field of risk regulation in crucial areas such as environmental and consumer protection. This book analyzes the reasons which have prompted this development, and discusses the ways in which the EU's structures and modes of market governance have changed and attempted to respond to such challenges.

Consumer out-of-court redress in the European Union is experiencing a significant transformation; indeed the current changes are the most important that have occurred in the history of the EU. This is due to the recent implementation of the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Directive 2013/11/EU and the Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) Regulation (EU) 2013/524. The Directive ensures the availability of quality ADR schemes and sets information obligations on businesses, and the Regulation enables the resolution of consumer disputes through a pan European ODR platform. The New Regulatory Framework for Consumer Dispute Resolution examines the impact of the new EU law in the field of consumer redress. Part I of the volume examines the new European legal framework and the main methods of consumer redress, including mediation, arbitration, and ombudsman schemes. Part II analyses the implementation of the ADR Directive in nine Member States with very different legal cultures in consumer redress, namely: Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Germany, France, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands and the UK, as well as the distinct approach taken in the US. Part III evaluates new trends in consumer ADR (CDR) by identifying best practices and looking at future trends in the field. In particular, it offers a vision of the future of CDR which is more than a mere dispute resolution tool, it poses a model on dispute system design for CDR, it examines the challenges of cross-border disputes, it proposes a strategy to promote mediation, and it identifies good practices of CDR and collective redress. The book concludes by calling for the mandatory participation of traders in CDR.

European Consumer Access to Justice Revisited takes into account both procedural and substantive law questions in order to give the term 'access to justice' an enhanced meaning. Specifically, it analyses developments and recent trends in EU consumer law and aims to evaluate their potential for increasing consumer confidence in the cross-border market. Via a critical assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of the means initiated at the EU level, the author highlights possible detriments to the cross-border business-to-consumer (B2C) market. To remedy this, he introduces an alternative method of creating a legal framework that facilitates B2C transactions in the EU - 'access to justice 2.0'.

In 1980, the United Nations Convention for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) came into being as an attempt to create a uniform commercial sales law. This book, first published in 2007, compares two major restatements - the UNIDROIT Principles and the Principles of European Contract Law (PECL) - with CISG articles. This work has gathered scholars and legal practitioners from twenty countries who contribute analysis on the various issues covered in the articles of the CISG comparing them with how the issue is treated in the UNIDROIT and PECL restatements.The introductory section of the book addresses theoretical and practical issues of the appropriate interpretive methodology as mandated in CISG Article 7 and it is followed by individual analyses of the Convention's provisions.

New rules on distance contracts provided for the Consumer Rights Directive of 25 October 2011 do not apply to package holidays or contracts falling within the scope of the Timeshare Directive. Moreover, contracts for passenger transport services and contracts for the provision of accommodation, car rental, catering or leisure services if the contract provides for a specific date or period of performance are not covered by some of these rules. Yet measures aimed at protecting the consumer when a contract is concluded via the phone, the Internet, by mail or other means of distance communication play a role in tourism. This book helps readers to navigate through uncertainties in travel contracts regarding information requirements, the right of withdrawal or providing alternative services. Findings reveal that consumer acquis is inadequately adapted to the features of the tourism industry when an optional instrument based on the Draft Common Frame of Reference might be used in the future.

Providing public access to educational material from schools and universities, research and teaching is viewed politically as a means of survival for industrialized countries that have few natural resources, like Germany. The author examined the conditions that provide for success in research and teaching by means of a legal comparison of the copyright laws in Germany and Sweden.

This volume analyses the theory and practice of European consumer protection in the context of consolidation initiatives seen, inter alia, in the revision of the Consumer Acquis, the Draft Common Frame of Reference and the proposal for an EU Consumer Rights Directive. The issues addressed are all the more significant given the revisions to the proposed Directive, the appointment of an 'Expert Group on a Common Frame of Reference' and the Commission's 2010 Green Paper on progress towards a European Contract Law. The contributions to this volume point to the arrival of a contested moment in EU consumer protection, questioning the arrival of the 'empowered' consumer and uncovering the fault lines between consumer protection and other goals. What emerges is a model of poly-contextual EU consumer protection law, a model that challenges the assumptions in both the 2010 Green Paper and the revised proposed Consumer Rights Directive.

In this volume, the basic principles of the administrative functions carried out by the Society for Performing and Mechanical Reproduction Rights (GEMA) are presented comprehensively and academically explained. This work is primarily focused on presenting and explaining the GEMAa (TM)s a oeinternal regulationsa: the statutes, the deed of assignment, and the distribution plan. Additionally, an overview is presented on the day to day practice of licensing the rights. The main focus of this presentation is the commentary section. The commentary presents in detail and academically considers the statutes as the basis of the organization, the deed of assignment as the foundation of the assignment of rights, and the distribution plan. The new edition brings this work up to date. The copyright law reform (a oeZweite Korba ) is taken into consideration as well as the latest judicature and the newest amendments to the GEMA's deed of assignment and distribution plan.

Atiyah and Adams' Sale of Goods, 14th Edition, by Twigg-Flesner and Canavan is a highly readable and comprehensive account of the law governing the sale of goods. It is essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students, and a valuable point of first reference for practitioners of commercial law. This book addresses the increasing split of the law on the sale of goods between commercial and consumer contracts, which is reflected in the separate treatment of consumer law aspects.

This conference volume on the German-Japanese colloquium a oeTransformations or Erosion of Private Autonomy?a carries the debate on the subject into the area of contract law that is central to economic life.

The 50-year anniversary of the German collecting society for performing artists, record producers and organizers, the "German Collecting Society for Performance Rights (GVL)," was marked by a symposium sponsored by the Institute for the Legal Protection of Industrial Property and Copyright, Humboldt-University of Berlin, in the fall of 2009. The now published and revised contributions to the symposium address a variety of topics including a historical review of the GVL, a critical analysis of German collecting societies' situation in light of European competition as well as the expectations of performance artists, record producers and users with regard to the GVL.

The third edition of Cranston's Consumers and the Law brings the reader fully up to date with developments in consumer law and includes important new material on utilities and financial services regulation. An internet home page has also been established for readers of this book. The home page has two main purposes. First, it provides links to websites containing primary sources such as codes, consultation documents and reports which are not always accessible in law libraries. Secondly it provides periodic updating information on key developments in law and policy.

This conference volume contains lectures, texts and reports on the conference a oeResearch and teaching in the information age - between freedom of access and the incentive to privatisea of the Institute for Media Law and Communication Law and the Modern History Department of the University of Cologne on 21 April 2006 in Cologne.

Coalitions of consumer groups, NGOs, and trade unions have traditionally been considered politically weak compared to well-organized and resourceful financial sector groups which dominate or "capture" financial regulatory decisions. However, following the 2008 financial crisis, civil society groups have been seen to exert much more influence, with politicians successfully implementing financial reform in spite of industry opposition. Drawing on literature from social movement research and regulatory politics, this book shows how diffuse interests were represented in financial regulatory overhauls in both the United States (US) and the European Union (EU). Four cases of reform in the post-crisis regulatory context are analyzed: the creation of a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the US; the introduction of new consumer protection regulations through EU directives; the failure of attempts to introduce a financial transaction tax in the US; and the agreement of 11 EU member states to introduce such a tax. It shows how building coalitions with important elite allies outside and inside government helped traditionally weak interest groups transcend a lack of material resources to influence and shape regulatory policy. By engaging with a less well-known side of the debate, it explains how business power was curbed and diverse interests translated into financial regulatory policy.

This collection includes essays by eleven leading public health experts, economists, physicians, political scientists, and lawyers, whose activities encompass Congressional testimonies, Surgeon General's reports on youth smoking, and clinical trials for drugs for smoking cessation. They analyze specific strategies that have been used to influence tobacco use, including taxation, regulation of advertising and promotion, regulation of indoor smoking, control of youth access to cigarettes and other tobacco products, litigation, and subsidies of smoking cessation, and set them against the latest scientific findings about tobacco and the changing cultural and political setting against which policy decisions are being made.

This report presents and analyses the legal instruments established for the protection of intellectual property in the shipbuilding industry which could be applied to ship design - the aesthetic side of shipbuilding. To what extent the vessel as a whole or its individual parts can be tangibly protected by copyrights and/or design patents is taken into consideration. Safeguards by means of contractual clauses are of significant importance as well (confidentiality agreements, contractual safeguard clauses for the security of "design rights," etc.). The issue of how this protection is legally and contractually constructed or rather, how it can be constructed, is the main focus of this examination.

Boilerplate--the fine-print terms and conditions that we become subject to when we click "I agree" online, rent an apartment, enter an employment contract, sign up for a cellphone carrier, or buy travel tickets--pervades all aspects of our modern lives. On a daily basis, most of us accept boilerplate provisions without realizing that should a dispute arise about a purchased good or service, the nonnegotiable boilerplate terms can deprive us of our right to jury trial and relieve providers of responsibility for harm. Boilerplate is the first comprehensive treatment of the problems posed by the increasing use of these terms, demonstrating how their use has degraded traditional notions of consent, agreement, and contract, and sacrificed core rights whose loss threatens the democratic order. Margaret Jane Radin examines attempts to justify the use of boilerplate provisions by claiming either that recipients freely consent to them or that economic efficiency demands them, and she finds these justifications wanting. She argues, moreover, that our courts, legislatures, and regulatory agencies have fallen short in their evaluation and oversight of the use of boilerplate clauses. To improve legal evaluation of boilerplate, Radin offers a new analytical framework, one that takes into account the nature of the rights affected, the quality of the recipient's consent, and the extent of the use of these terms. Radin goes on to offer possibilities for new methods of boilerplate evaluation and control, among them the bold suggestion that tort law rather than contract law provides a preferable analysis for some boilerplate schemes. She concludes by discussing positive steps that NGOs, legislators, regulators, courts, and scholars could take to bring about better practices.

This work was published to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the VG WORT. It begins with an introduction to the collecting society's development and goes on to describe the collecting society's history from 1958 to 2008. Intrinsically tied to the history of VG WORT are the various intellectual property rights. This work reflects on future prospects in the face of the rapid development of technical advancements and the difficulties in exercising copyright laws in the digital and multimedia age.

The significance of 32 b UrhG German Copyright Law] is especially apparent in relation to the USA. This is because the majority of international copyright licenses regulated by 32 b UrhG take place between contractual parties in Germany and the USA. The present work investigates the factual and legal conditions under which 32 b UrhG is effective in Germany and in the USA."

The Banking Law Day 2005 was devoted to the discussion of consumer credit for real estate assets subsequent to the Heininger jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice and the area of conflict centred on claim transfers, bank confidentiality and data protection. Experts from academia, real life andthe judiciary discussed these subjects under the chairmanship of Wolfgang Gossmann and Gerhart Kreft."

Diese Festschrift ist dem bedeutenden Anwalt gewidmet. Der Jubilar hat sich besonders auf den Gebieten des gewerblichen Rechtsschutzes und Urheberrechtes einen Namen gemacht.

This is the new edition of the leading work on the law and practice of auctions. The book looks at every aspect of auction practice from the economics of auction sales and restrictions on trading to criminal and other liabilities of the auctioneer. There is also a chapter on VAT. There have been important recent developments in the field of consumer protection and the book has been substantially revised to reflect these. In addition to general updating the new edition considers the practice of online auctions for the first time. There is also a section on looted art . The book continues to draw on case law from other common law jurisdictions.