Publication details
Závazky ze smluv o poskytování digitálního obsahu nebo služeb digitálního obsahu
| Title in English | Obligations from Contracts on the Provision of Digital Content or Digital Content Services |
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| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2024 |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | This chapter covers the obligations arising from contracts for the provision of digital content or digital content services, and their relationship to the sale of "goods with digital elements." Following the European Union's trend of harmonizing legislation in the field of licensing law, it also decided to regulate the area of consumer use of online works through Directive (EU) 2019/770, implemented into Czech law by amendment No. 374/2022. This legislation introduces new provisions (Sec. 2389a et seq. of the Civil Code) effective from January 6, 2023, situated after the regulation of licenses in the Civil Code. Despite Directive 2019/770/EU primarily addressing business-to-consumer (B2C) relationships, the Czech legislator has extended the new regulations to also include business-to-business (B2B) and consumer-to-consumer (C2C) relations. This chapter highlights that the novel regulation broadly applies to any provision of digital content and digital content services, not limited to traditional contractual types such as licensing agreements, cloud services, or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) agreements. For digital content requiring copyright permission, relevant licensing provisions are applied (Sec. 2389a(2) of the Civil Code). The chapter discusses the scope of the new legal framework, distinguishing between the provision of digital content or services and the sale of "goods with digital elements" like smart devices, which are governed by separate legal provisions (Sec. 2158(2) of the Civil Code) following the transposition of Directive (EU) 2019/771. Additionally, it clarifies the application of the new regulation to contracts where the consumer provides personal data instead of monetary payment (Sec. 2389g(2) of the Civil Code), addressing the modern phenomenon of "paying with personal data" in the digital economy. |