HomeExpertiseCopyright

Copyright is your currency; it underpins the financing, creation, exploitation and protection of your content and it extends to your software assets which, in a digital world, will pervade your business.

At Wiggin, copyright is our business. We understand every facet of it – and we understand the eco-systems in which it is important. We can help you with the copyright aspects of complex deals, whether technology or media related, daunting enforcement dilemmas, intricate rights clearance scenarios, chain of title and subsistence, as well as tricky term of protection conundrums – and where necessary we go to court for you, and have done so in many of the most significant and precedent setting litigation actions.

In doing so, we have not only confirmed long-standing interpretations of important copyright principles, but also challenged established thinking to secure fundamental legal protection through carefully negotiated settlements or hard-fought judicial decisions. We are active across the many different creative industries including film/TV, publishing, music, art, software and video games; we are there for you.

For example, many IP lawyers questioned whether the law relating to authorisation of infringement of copyright could recover from the CBS v Amstrad decision. Our team guided the US film studios in their litigation against the Newzbin website and secured a vital judgment clarifying when website operators can be liable for copyright infringement online. The case also clarified both the application of the law on authorisation and the scope of the communication to the public right – an area that has gone on to see considerable development in recent years.

We have challenged the position that the Internet was so sacrosanct that the underlying technology could not be used to help copyright owners by winning the first ever case in the UK requiring internet service providers to block subscriber access to an infringing website. We have also secured valuable precedents on parallel importing, damages calculation and recovery.

In our Brussels office, we work with you on a range issues of arising from recent changes to the EU’s legal framework for copyright in the Digital Single Market. We provide advice on implementation of the new norms by the Member States and we work with you to defend the copyright principles that underpin your business.

We understand that in the digital world. the interface between copyright and technology is a business imperative; so much so that, in 2012, the firm invested in Incopro – a copyright and brand protection technology business. Incopro has subsequently been acquired by Corsearch but together we continue to provide clients with a one-stop online brand protection and anti-counterfeiting service. Wiggin has also built an informal network of trusted overseas law firms — with a similar media, technology and IP focus to its own — to ensure clients get the advice they need in all key jurisdictions.

In 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021, 2022 and 2023, Wiggin was named “UK Copyright Firm of the Year” by Managing Intellectual Property Magazine.