EU Copyright and Competition Law - "Under which conditions may a refusal to license copyright-protected content constitute an abuse of a dominant position?"

Sammanfattning: The topic that this thesis aims to investigate is that of the intersection of intellectual property rights (more specifically copyright) and EU competition law. The research is carried out with the purpose of exploring the following two questions; namely to what extent the interest of further competition is reflected internally within the scope of copyright protection, as well as, under what conditions a refusal to license a copyright-protected work constitutes an abuse of a dominant position according to Article 102 TFEU. By accounting for the elements and the general background of copyright as well as reporting on such cases of Magill and IMS Health this thesis will be able to answer the aforementioned questions. What has been discerned in the thesis is that the ECJ, in general, have discretion and so tends to favor the right holders and their IPRs whilst deprioritizing competition. Given the vague definition regarding ‘exceptional circumstances’ the Court is allowed flexibility wherein the onus is on the Court to decide on how to interpret the term as well as apply it in a given case. Besides this, the ECJ has put emphasis on exclusive rights for intellectual property, making it evidently clear that even if an undertaking refuses to license their IPRs to a third party that this in and of itself does not constitute abuse.