Tobias Cohen Jehoram in Managing IP about a judgment of the Court of Justice of the EU on copyright protection 

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​Copyright protection for a portrait photograph is not inferior to that enjoyed by any other work, the Court of Justice of the EU said in a judgment arising from photos of the Austrian hostage Natasha K

Addressing questions referred from a case in Austria, the Court said that the 1993 Copyright Directive means that a portrait photograph can be protected if it “is an
intellectual creation of the author reflecting his personality and expressing his free and creative choices in the production of that photograph”.

“The Court clearly says the threshold is the same for any kind of work and that protection should be broad,” said Tobias Cohen Jehoram of De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek in the Netherlands.

He said the decision could have a big impact, particularly in countries such as Germany where different standards of protection have been applied to copyright works
with functional aspects. Narrower protection is sometimes known as “thin copyright”.

Cohen Jehoram told Managing IP that the case showed that the Court is keen to “take control of a subject that was intended to be left out of harmonisation” as the 1998
Designs Directive specifically said that member states can determine the extent to which, and the conditions under which, copyright protection is conferred, “including
the level of originality required”.

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