The exclusive right to authorize or prohibit reproduction (broadly defined as making of copies) is an essential economic right of the copyright holders and of holders of related rights.Like most exclusive rights, the reproduction right also may be limited by some exceptions, among which the best known and having the most important impact, from the practical point of view, is the private copying (making copies of a work without the rightholder’s consent, for personal use or for the family, of couse under some conditions).Many states have implemented the private copying exception from the exclusive reproduction right, based on the general provision concerning exceptions to the reproduction right as in the Berne Convention („It shall be a matter for legislation in the countries of the Union to permit the reproduction of such works in certain special cases, provided that such reproduction does not conflict with a normal exploitation of the work and does not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the author.”). However, the implementing systems were and still are rather un‑uniform and vary a lot, from the payers’ point of view, as well as from the point of view of manner and criteria for establishing the list of equipments and/or media for which a compensation for private copying is owed.We shall include the full text of the Decision I ZR 94/05, of December 6th, 2007, of the German Supreme Court and Decision of September 15th, 2008, of the Civil Court of Appeal of Barcelona, in file no. 822/2007‑2 (generating the file C‑467/08 at ECJ), also adding some notes whereby we wish to underline some aspects and interpretations that we deemed essential in the said decisions.
