Does “lending” include “e-lending”? Yes, says Advocate General Szpunar

In the context of national proceedings opposing the Dutch Association of Public Libraries and the collective management organization Stichting Leenrecht, the District Court of The Hague referred a question about the interpretation of articles 1(1), 2(1)(b), and 6(1) of the Rental and Lending Rights Directive (Directive 2006/115): should the Directive's notion of “lending” be interpreted as including e-lending services? Advocate General Szpunar advised the CJEU to answer in the affirmative. Should the CJEU follow Szpunar’s opinion, the legislative enactment of an e-lending exception may not be necessary. But such a decision – like AG Szpunar’s opinion itself and AG Wathelet’s opinion in GS Media – would carry added meaning for the relationship between copyright law and technological change. It would signal the willingness of the members of the Court to do what the EU legislature has been largely failing to accomplish: to keep copyright law up to date.