Rudolf Leška
JUDr. Mgr. Rudolf Leška, Ph.D., LL.M.
He is a founding partner of the law firm ŠTAIDL LEŠKA ADVOKÁTI s.r.o. and a widely recognised lawyer in the field of copyright law. His main areas of expertise include moral rights, performers’ rights, theatre law and, in particular, collective management of copyright. As an experienced litigator, he leads many of the firm’s most significant legal disputes, including representation in the largest-ever Czech copyright dispute, worth over 1 billion crowns; representation in one of only two Czech cases of musical plagiarism; successful disputes with the pirate platforms ulož.to, přehraj.to, Hellshare, Hellspy and others, and a landmark case concerning the blocking of pirate domains in cooperation with internet service providers in Slovakia and the Czech Republic (Vodafone, Slovak Telekom). He is licensed to practise law in both Slovakia and the Czech Republic. He graduated from Charles University and undertook study visits and postgraduate studies at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich and the University of San Francisco. Alongside his legal practice, he lectures on copyright law, media law and theatre law not only at the University of Finance and Administration in Prague, but also as a visiting lecturer at international institutions, including City University of Seattle, the Eastern European University in Tbilisi, the University of Cyprus, Charles University, the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague and the Catholic University of Lisbon. His academic work includes co-authoring a leading commentary on the Czech Copyright Act (https://www.knihyleges.cz/autorsky-zakon-prakticky-komentar-s-judikaturou) and contributing to major international publications published by Cambridge University Press (The Cambridge Handbook of Intellectual Property in Central and Eastern Europe), Oxford University Press (Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice), Wolters Kluwer (Pluralism or Universalism in International Copyright Law), Springer (Digital Peripheries), Les Éditions Thémis (Copyright in Action), Sweet & Maxwell/Thomson Reuters (Moral Rights) and Elgar Publishing (Research Handbook on Intellectual Property and Moral Rights). He is fluent in Slovak, Czech, German and English, and can communicate in Portuguese and Russian.
