CCPlusDesign.EU - Or How to Apply Creative Commons Licences to 3D Printed Products in the Light of the Most Recent Developments of the European Court of Justice Case Law

The paper starts with an attempt to clarify and explain the interface between copyright and design rights protection in relation to the originality standard under EU law. It looks in particular at the partial/perfect cumulation of protections as established in the relevant legislation (the Design Directive and the Community Design Regulation) and interpreted by the ECJ. Moreover, the paper tries to establish the real implications of the Flos v Semeraro decision in the area of copyright originality and its harmonisation. The paper then moves to an analysis of Creative Commons licences, both version 3.0 and the newly released version 4.0. It tries to determine under which conditions a blueprint or digital file released under CC licences can be 3D printed in a physical object, that is to say it tries to establish the legal relationship between the digital file and its manufacturing in order to determine how far copyright protection - and contract law - can reach. In the last part, the paper tries to provide a set of normative elements based on copyright, design and contract law that will constitute the legal framework for an Open Design model