100 posts
Evidence, evidence based policy and IP
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What constitutes evidence for copyright policy? Such is the title of the upcoming event at Bournemouth University as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science. While evidence in IP is a already a challenge, let's take a look a further look at...
Digitisation and Online Display of Orphan Works
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Copyrighted works whose rightsholders are not known or cannot be located or contacted in order to obtain copyright permissions are called orphan works. Numerous European cultural institutions hold in their collections orphan works with significant e...
Remember Remember the Rules of Copyright Protection: The Tobermory Cat
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The cat at the heart of this post was a ginger feline that lived on the Main Street of Tobermory, capital of the Isle of Mull in the Scottish Inner Hebrides. It was a footloose fancy-free mascot that belonged to no one and everyone [there is no such...
Have EU orphans found a caring home?
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As promptly reported yesterday by the IPKat, the Orphan Works Directive has just been published in Official Journal of the European Union, thus becoming Directive 2012/28/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2012 o...
Breaking news: Orphan Work directive now online
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But are they diligent searchers ...? The most recent online issue of the Official Journal of the European Union features Directive 2012/28/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2012 on certain permitted uses of orphan works.
Copyrights, Property Ownership, Differential Pricing and the First Sale Doctrine in Law and Capitalism
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The landmark copyright case Kirtsaeng v. Wiley will be argued today at the United States Supreme Court. Joe Mullin at Ars Technica has a nice write-up at How a Supreme Court ruling may stop you from reselling just about anything. This is a non-polit...
Upphovsrätt: EU-direktivet om anonyma verk
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I förrgår avslutades ett lagstiftningsprojekt på EU-nivå när direktivet om anonyma verk, som rör upphovsrätten och därmed den inre marknaden, publicerades officiellt: EUROPAPARLAMENTETS OCH RÅDETS DIREKTIV 2012/28/EU av den 25 oktober 201...
US Librarian of Congress issues new rule on exemption to anti-circumvention prohibition
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The Librarian of Congress has just released its fifth triennial review of the impact of existing exemptions allowed under 17 USC 1201 (a)(1)(B) and adopted a new rule of the classes of copyr...
EU:n orpoteosdirektiivi julkaistu
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Kirjoituksessa Digitaaliset kirjastot ja orpoteokset (joka teknisten vaikeuksien jälkeen ilmestyikin kahteen kertaan) kävin lukijoiden muistin virkistämiseksi lyhyesti läpi EU:n komission teollis- ja tekijänoikeuksia koskevan strategian, kulttuu...
Digitaaliset kirjastot ja orpoteokset
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Viime vuoden toukokuussa EU:n komissio julkaisi suunnitelman teollis- ja tekijänoikeuksien nykyaikaistamiseksi (tiedote IP/11/630 22 EU-kielellä ja muistio MEMO/11/332 englanniksi: Intellectual Property Strategy FAQs). Digitaaliset kirjastot Eu...
Slovakia: Protesting SOZA's Newest Copyright Fees
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SOZA's general manager Vladimír Repčík addressed Slovak high school seniors via his blog on Oct. 22, urging them to register with his agency and pay €15 for their traditional graduation parties. Tibor Blazko reports on the controversy.
EU orphan works directive officially published
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The new EU directive on orphan works has been published in the Official Journal of the European Union: DIRECTIVE 2012/28/EU OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 25 October 2012 on certain permitted uses of orphan works; OJEU 27.10.2012...
The EU declares war on blind pirates
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A friend has suggested that at the next negotiating round on the Treaty of the Visually Impaired at the World Intellectual Property Organization the members of the European Blind Union should present themselves with black pirate flags and one pirate...
The facts about our position on French copyright proposals
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There has been some interest around an extract from a note we have prepared about a proposal by French news publishers associations to require search engines to license all of the content that they help users to find across the web. The web has led...
Slovakia: Music Copyright Agency Vs. School Drama Club
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The Slovak Performing and Mechanical Rights Society imposes a €975 fine on a high school drama club for a fundraiser ball, which included a raffle and featured songs authored and performed by the club members - but had not been properly registered...
A Rare Decision on Copyright from the Scots Courts
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Cats take a rest in preparation for 'Winter' This Kat was excited to find a judgment relating to copyright infringement from the Outer House of the Court of Session on the Scottish Courts 50 Most Recent Cases page yesterday. Although Naxos Rights In...
ACTA-framgångens tusen fäder
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SVT var nere i Bryssel härom veckan, och har lagt ut en artikel och ett reportage på SVT Nyheter (2 min): När jag ser reportaget kommer jag att tänka på det (mer eller mindre autentiska) kinesiska ordspråket “Framgången har tusen fäder,...
Final approval of EU orphan works directive
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These seem indeed to be exciting days for issues surrounding copyright and digitisation. Yesterday, Google and the Association of American Publishers concluded a settlement agreement that, while putting an end to a seven-year long running liti...
DRM screws people with visual disabilities, Linux Drives the Open Source Car, Top 5 Mobile Apps for the Techie Traveler, Chinese Internet superpowers and more…
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How DRM screws people with visual disabilities: a report from the front lines from Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow ZDNet’s Rupert Goodwins is going blind. Most of us will lose a substantial fraction of our visual acuity, should we live long enough...
International Copyright Scope and Limits and the TPP Draft
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Megan Geuss has the international copyright draft story for Ars Technica at Leaked: US proposal on copyright's limits. The problem is that major "partners" in these kinds of negotiations tend to represent rightsholders and vested interests. There ar...
Collective Rights Management — Request For Comments
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The Commission has presented a proposal for an EU-wide directive on Collective Rights Management. “Directive on collective management of copyright and related rights and multi-territorial licensing of rights in musical works for online uses in...
EU-wide online access to orphan works soon possible
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Certain photos, films, books and other artistic works are protected by copyright even though their right holders (authors) cannot be found. The gap in the current legislation is that no rules were made for when the right holder is nowhere to be fou...
Orphan works directive approved by EU Parliament
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As IPKat readers will remember, back in June this year the EU Parliament and Council representatives agreed on a piece of draft legislation on orphan works (see the relevant reports by the IPKat and The 1709 Blog). Backgr...
Urvattnat EU-direktivet om herrelösa verk antaget
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Idag antog EU-parlamentet direktivet om så kallade herrelösa verk (orphan works). Röstsiffrorna blev 531 för, 11 mot, och 65 som avstod. Jag avstod, för att markera att vi är besvikna över resultatet. Det här är visserligen ett steg i rätt...
At the apex of the Summit: "real world" invoked in copyright debate
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From the IPKat's friend Magali Delhaye (take a katpat, Magali!) comes news that Neelie Kroes (Vice-President of the European Commission and not a person who is widely known for her warm and encouraging endorsements of intellectual property) gave a sp...
File Sharing and Plagiarism
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The Copyright Violations of the 21st Century In the age of the Internet it is getting more and more natural to download and freely use available contents, although most of the texts, films, videos and pictures on the internet are under copyright pr...
Orphan Works
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Large-scale initiatives to digitise the collections of libraries have raised the problem of rights related to “orphan works” – those for which rights-holders cannot be identified or found. The Commission has proposed a Directive whi...
Orphans left out in cold: final vote on weak Directive
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ORPHAN WORKS DIRECTIVE: OUR CULTURAL HERITAGE IS STILL LEFT OUT IN THE COLD AND OFF-LINE The Orphan Works Directive that will be voted by the European Parliament on Thursday this week in Strasbourg will not facilitate nor...
Starting a Collecting Society
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Last week, I had the pleasure of witnessing the birth of a collecting society in the Gambia. Contrary to my previously held assumptions, collecting societies aren't delivered by storks or the result of divine intervention. Instead, collec...
Copyright Law Draft in Germany Proposes that News Aggregators Should Have to Pay a Royalty Fee for Use of News Snippets from Original News Publications
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What usage of "original news" is permitted without liability for copyright infringement? This is an interesting question of copyright law in the Internet age that has come the forefront in new legislative developments in Germany. Traditionally, one...
Pippi reveals that CETA is counterfeit ACTA
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Imagine a software which reveals what has been copy-pasted and from where. This software exists, and it is called Pippi Longstrings. And it’s been Beta-tested on a very sexy subject. While the future of ACTA looks dim after the European Parliament...
New heights at Copyright trolling: “YouTube Flags Democrats’ Convention Video on Copyright Grounds- American elections roundup
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Congress releases report on the effects of patent trolls, could this mean litigation? from The Next Web by Emil Protalinski YouTube Flags Democrats’ Convention Video on Copyright Grounds from Wired Top Stories by Ryan Singel A seemingly rogue c...
Attribution Right? In a Letter of Recommendation?
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Let's start with an admission: this Kat has always found moral rights a bit hard to grasp. Don't get me wrong--I am all in favour of protecting one's personhood and reputation. But the notion of a creator's personality being a priori intertwined...
Now comes TPP, the Son of ACTA, old predictions about the Internet, EFF guide against DDoS attacks, Top 10 uTorrent Alternatives…
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LEAKED! TPP: the Son of ACTA will oblige America and other countries to throw out privacy, free speech and due process for easier copyright enforcement from Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow What Is Wrong With the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) fr...
No more Channel to Surf as Anton goes to jail
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First there was TV Links; then there was TVShack (see Kat Posts here, here and here. Now at last there's Surf the Channel (STC), the latest in a line of cases considering the liability for operators of websites which provide links to unauthorised co...
Tabloid publication of stolen photos is not "fair use", says US Appeals Court
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Noelia and Jorge Reynoso A couple of days ago the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals published its much awaited decision in Monge v Maya Magazines, a case concerning publication by tabloid magazine TVNotas of stolen copyright-protected p...
“Google Starts Punishing “Pirate” Sites but will it be effective? WikiLeaks Resumes Operations, meet the Virus Gauss.. A cyberculture roundup…
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I never search google to download stuff. I know where I should go. I guess like porn sites, torrent people directly go to the addresses they already know. A different dynamic… Not the pirates but Google loses here… I hope… Google St...
Lamb comforts Parliamentarians: to ERR is human
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One of the legal developments which has been quietly creeping along in the wake of London's long summer of royal celebrations and Olympic festivities is the progress of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill -- in particular clause 55, which would...
ACTA – How did it start? How will it end?
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It takes 14 minutes for the signals from the NASA Mars rover Curiosity to find their way to Earth. Given the mental distance between Brussels and EU citizens, we must see it as an extraordinary feat of openness that the Council of the European Union...
Hur vi vann ACTA
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När EU-parlamentet röstade nej till ACTA-avtalet den 4 juli 2012 var den en riktigt stor seger. Vad var det vi gjorde rätt, och hur kan vi göra det igen? Det är frågor vi behöver diskutera, för vi kommer att behöva göra det igen. ACTA-avt...
ICO Gives Guidance on Disclosure of Copyright Material
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On a day when Standard Chartered shares are falling, discord between the coalition parties increases and the UK's Olympic successes become set to break records, this little bit of (slightly old) news caught this Kat's eye while getting her dail...
Kicking and screaming at WIPO: Dragging the EU and the US to the negotiating table
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EU and US have shown insensitivity to the right to read of the millions of blind persons. They also have also lacked transparency and democratic legitimacy in their attempts to slow and weaken progress towand an effective Treaty for the Visually Impa...
“Now is the time”: TACD oral statement at WIPO SCCR24
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The future is now, Now is not the time to simply “keep on making progress.” This SCCR is the time to finish work on text for a Treaty. When this issue comes out in the open the solutions become much more evident than within these walls.
Licensiering av musik på EU:s inre marknad: Nya tongångar
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I Tillväxt- och sysselsättningspakten betonade Europeiska rådet den 28-29 juni 2012 (EUCO 76/1/12) behovet av snabba framsteg för att senast 2015 uppnå en väfungerande digital inre marknad. Stats- och regeringscheferna vill utveckla gränsöver...
Why not a truly European Digital Single Market?
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The old intellectual property (IP) agenda of the EU Commission seems to need a fresh start, so why not build a truly European Digital Single Market at the same time? Collective management and music licensing The proposed directive on collective m...
Media arvioi Euroopan musiikkimarkkinoita
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Saadaanko Eurooppaan kuluttajien kaipaamat markkinat musiikin verkkolevitykseen? Tässä on keskeinen haaste EU:n digitaalisille sisämarkkinoille, joita maanosamme johtajat peräänkuuluttavat, ainakin julistusten tasolla. Taustaksi Kirjoitukses...
News reports on collecting societies and music licensing
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The directive proposed by the European Commission to improve collecting socities and multiterritorial online music licensing resulted in a batch of news reports. Here is a sample. Collecting societies and music licensing First we glanced at the E...
Less online music market fragmentation in Europe
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”While the Internet knows no borders, the online market for music services in the EU is still fragmented, and a single market has still not been fully achieved.” Thus spoke the European Commission. The lack of at least EU-wide online music mark...
Förslag om upphovsrätt och musiklicenser på EU:s inre marknad (slutlig version)
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Konsumenterna behöver ett lagligt utbud av lätt tillgängliga onlinetjänster i Europa, men den digitala inre marknaden är i dag splittrad med mer än 250 upphovsrättsorganisationer. Trots detta uppgår intäkterna redan till omkring sex miljarde...
Final version DE EN FR: EU online copyright licensing proposal
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The final version of the EU online copyright licensing proposal has now appeared in German, English and French. COM(2012) 372 final Replacing the provisional versions (still on the Commission web page Management of Copyright and Related Rights),...
The Parliament’s Gossip
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This is the last plenary session before the summer break (which will last from 23 July until 25 August). This session was held between 2 and 5 July and saw several major events, such as the astonishing rejection of the … Continue reading →...
Saadaanko Eurooppaan toimivat verkkomusiikin markkinat?
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Euroopan digitaaliset musiikkimarkkinat ovat hajanaiset ja huonosti toimivat. EU:ssa toimivat yli 250 yhteisvalvontajärjestöä hoitavat silti jo nyt yhteensä noin 6 miljardin euron vuosittaista liikevaihtoa. Noin 80 % yhteisvalvontajärjestöjen l...
Introducing CETA, the ACTA Zombie
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ACTA is dead, but this is not the end of the story. As anybody who has enjoyed a good horror movie knows, no matter how dead the monster was at the end of the first film, it will be alive, kicking, and stronger than ever when the sequel comes. In the...
EU online copyright licensing proposal
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Yesterday the EU Commission promised copyright reform regarding music licensing in the Single Market (IP/12/772; 21 language versions). This is how the Commission describes the main aims and proposals to improve dysfunctional collecting societies...
EU Commission publishes draft directive on collective management of copyright and related rights
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Kat-management of rights works perfectly fine. And it's cool Today the European Commission issued its "Proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on collective management of copyright and related rights and multi-ter...
Reforming copyright for the digital age: the Commission takes an important step forward
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Last week’s vote on ACTA – although hardly a surprise for those who’ve been following – was a reminder about the big debate currently going on, about how to balance intellectual property rights with Internet freedoms For me it’s...
The CJEU, Copyright, and the ‘First Sale’ Doctrine
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Angus MacCulloch (Lancaster University Law School) & Albert Sánchez Graells (Law School, University of Hull) The Court of Justice of the EU delivered a controversial judgment on the 3rd July 2012 in Case C-128/11 UsedSoft v Oracle. The case will...
Starstruck with the Audio Visual Treaty
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Prompted by this tweet from @IPKat, your Katonomist asks, how will the new Audio Visual Treaty affect regular performers? The treaty extends the rights of actors and harmonises this protection internationally. Will it only benefit the stars? Sad...
Freedom to redistribute software, UsedSoft, C-128/11
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On 03/07/2012 the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Justice interpreted in case UsedSoft GmbH, C-128/11, that a software copyrights holder (Oracle International Corp.) cannot oppose redistribution of the software by a buyer of the license...
Why the rejection of ACTA is a victory for European Democracy
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On the 4th of July 2012 the European Parliament has rejected ACTA, an international treaty already signed by the European Commission and by 22 of 27 EU member states. The power of the EU´s legislative branch has been clearly reinforced. This time t...
Tony Barber on ACTA
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Tony Barber’s brief blog post on ACTA this week was painfully even-handed, and ended on a most curious note: [I]f the EU wants to be taken seriously in its self-appointed role as the world’s most fervent supporter of a rules-based internati...
EU: Not copyright but enforcement reform
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When the anti-user trade agreement ACTA was resoundingly voted down by 478 MEPs against 39 (with 165 abstentions), 21 of the 39 pro-ACTA Mohicans were French UMP/EPP members. As it happens, the commissioner Michel Barnier responsible for copyright...
ACTA – Analysis of the Vote
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In the historic vote yesterday, ACTA was swept away by a massive 478 members of the European Parliament voting against it. Only 39 members voted in absolute favour. 165 abstained, which had been the voting recommendation for the two Conservative grou...
EU Parliament rejects ACTA
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(c) C Lutz / AP Readers of the IPKat will be well aware of the troubles the controversial Anti-Counterfeting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has gone through since the EU signed it last January, following unanimous adoption by the Council in December 2011 (s...
