Supreme Court rules on copyright contracts in landmark case

Insights|March 4, 2025

The Swedish Supreme Court (Högsta Domstolen) has ruled in a dispute between two authors over the rights to a book they originally worked on together. The Court clarified that copyright contracts should be interpreted in line with general contract law. This is a true landmark case, putting an end to a debate that has been going on for more than 100 years. Roschier represented the successful party in the case, which ended with all claims being dismissed and cost reimbursement for Roschier’s client.

The case involved two authors who had collaborated on a book series but ended their partnership during work on the second book. They signed a contract stating that one author held full copyright to the book. Later, the other author sued, claiming his copyrighted texts had been used without permission.

The plaintiff argued that the agreement only allowed the other author to use the book series’ concept, not the specific text he had contributed to the book. The defendant maintained that the agreement clearly transferred all rights, including any prior contributions.

The dispute centered on whether any special legal principles should apply to the interpretation of copyright contracts. Such debate has been going on in Sweden, and in other Nordic countries, since at least 1919, when such legal principle was included in the Swedish copyright legislation, but which was not carried over in the reformation of the copyright legislation in the 1950s.

The Supreme Court has now firmly ruled, in a broad sweeping legal precedent for all copyright contracts under Swedish law, that while copyright considerations may play a role in contract interpretation, they do not create separate legal principles. Instead, such considerations shall be consistent with what applies to the interpretation of contracts in general.

In this particular case, the Court found that the contract clearly transferred all rights, meaning that no copyright infringement had occurred. As a result, all claims were dismissed.

Roschier represented the successful party in the case, reinforcing the importance of clear contractual agreements in creative collaborations and providing further guidance on copyright disputes.

Read more from the Swedish Supreme Court’s website (in Swedish)