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The late Marc Soulier, also known as Ayerdhal As reported by this blog through a  breaking news post , yesterday the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued its  decision  in  Soulier and Doke , C-301/15. This was a reference for a preliminary ruling from the French Conseil d’État (Council of State) and concerned the compatibility with EU law  [read: the  InfoSoc Directive ]  of the 2012  French law  to allow and regulate the digital exploitation of out-of-print 20th century books. As explained more at length  here ,  by introducing into the French  C ode de la propriété intellectuelle   (CPI)  a new chapter  [ Chapter IV  - Articles L 134-1 to L 134-9, subsequently amended]  to Title III of Book I, this piece of legislation has vested  approved collecting societies with the right to authorise the reproduction and the representation in digital form of out-of-print books, while allowing the authors of those books, or their successors in title, to oppose or put

Is a national law that provides  ab initio  that a collecting society - rather than the author of a work - has the right to authorise the reproduction and communication to the public of such work compatible with EU law? This - in a nutshell - is the question at the centre of what is probably  [of course, after  GS Media , on which see the string of IPKat posts  here ]  the most important copyright case of the year at the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU):  Soulier and Doke , C-301/15. Why this case matters The reason is soon explained: this reference for a preliminary ruling from the French  Conseil d’État is not just a case concerning the compatibility with EU law of the French  loi   ( Law No 2012-287 of 1 March 2012 ) to allow and regulate the digital exploitation of out-of-print 20th century books, but - more generally - a case that questions the actual freedom of Member States to legislate independently on copyright issues.  As this blog  reported , in fact, the

Are libraries allowed to lend electronic books in their collections under the  Rental and Lending Rights Directive ? If so, under what conditions?  Is there such thing as digital exhaustion under the  InfoSoc Directive ? These were t he  questions  in  Vereniging Openbare Bibliotheken v  Stichting Leenrecht , C-174/15, a reference for a preliminary ruling to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) from the  Rechtbank Den Haag (District Court of The Hague, Netherlands).  As  reported  by this blog, this reference arose in the context of proceedings brought by the association of Dutch public libraries which - contrary to the position of Dutch government - holds the view that libraries should be entitled to lend electronic books included in their collections according to the principle "one copy one user".  This envisages the possibility for a library user to download an electronic copy of a work included in the collection of a library with the result that - as lo