Using copyright-protected material as evidence in a court proceeding.
The Swedish Patent and Market Court of Appeal has provided for an interesting ruling (PMFT 2585-17, 2018-01-24) concerning the protection of copyright-protected works when these are used as evidence as a court proceeding. The case at hand concerned a text written by J.I., filed as evidence during an appeal concerning custody. M.B. (the mother) filed a copy of the text as evidence of J.I.:s (the father) inappropriate behavior. The text had not been previously published. The objective was of course to harm the credibility of J.I. by means of the content of the text in question and thereby to succeed in acquiring the custody of their son. The custody proceedings took place behind closed doors. J.I. sued for copyright infringement on three grounds, the distribution of the text, its reproduction and its communication to the public. Is the work copyright-protected? The ruling of the Court starts with considering whether the text is copyright protected work, conclud...