Unprecedented lockout of stakeholders from TPP negotiating venue
[Statement by Jane Kelsey, University of Auckland] The New Zealand government has imposed unprecedented restrictions on registered stakeholders as it hosts the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations in Auckland this week. “We turned up this morning and found we are locked out of the entire Sky City Convention Centre for all 10 days except the so-called stakeholder day on Friday,” according to Professor Jane Kelsey, who has attended six previous rounds. Click here for more.
Germany’s Bad, and Illegal, Proposal to Require “Ancillary Copyright” Licensing of Internet Search
[Sean Flynn] German news publishers are trying to require licensing fees to be paid to them for indexing their content by search companies through a proposal that may move forward in the German Parliament later this week. This ‘ancillary copyright‘ (text here) law would require search engines and other purveyors of information on the internet (but not publishers of “journalistic citations”) to pay licensing fees for showing headlines and snippets of news articles. The proposal is bad policy, and also appears illegal under international law. Click here for more.
La Referencia Launched in Argentina
[Carolina Botero] In Buenos Aires, Argentina, 9 countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela) met on November 29, 2012 and pledged to create a regional network for clustering institutional repositories. They also made a political commitment to mobilize a route to Open Access in public policy and also by encouraging other states in the region to join them. Click here for more on Fundación Karisma’s blog.
America Says: Go Gently on Porn Pirate
[Joe Karaganis] Another case has come along to illustrate the excesses of the US system of statutory penalties for copyright infringement – here, a $1.5 million judgement against a guy for sharing 10 porn films on BitTorrent. Previous infringement cases suggest that there will be ample room to bat this around on appeal. The $1.5 million penalty may not stick… As we noted a couple posts ago, penalties for infringement attract only 51% support among adults (in our recent survey of 2303 Americans). Nearly all of this group supports the use of fines for infringement. Another 7% will consider the circumstances. So let’s look at fines. Click here for more.
Africa’s First Creative Commons 3.0 Licenses!
[Aurelia J. Schultz, Creative Commons Uganda] We are pleased to announce the launch of the Creative Commons 3.0 Uganda licenses. Since joining the Creative Commons family in March of 2011, the Ugandan team has been incredibly busy: hosting the African Regional Meeting, pulling together petitions for the Pan-African Intellectual Property Organization, and spreading the news about CC licenses. While doing all these great activities, they’ve also completed one of the last 3.0 ports. Click here for more.
Canadian Bill to Promote Exports of HIV/AIDS Medicines Produce Under Compulsory License Is Defeated
[Mike Palmedo] Last week, the Canadian Parliament voted down Bill C-398, which would have streamlined the Canadian legal framework allowing generic firms to export medicines produced under compulsory license to developing countries. The existing framework, Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime (CAMR), establishes a mechanism for firms to produce essential drugs that are under patent in Canada and export them to developing countries. The mechanism involves steps to comply with WTO rules on compulsory licenses. However, the Canadian system (and the WTO system) have been criticized as overly bureaucratic and cumbersome – and therefore ineffective. Click here for more.
A Mixed Bag For Fair Use In China’s Newest Copyright Law Draft
[Matthew Webb] On July 6, 2012, China’s National Copyright Administration published a Second Draft for a new (third) revision to the Copyright Law for the People’s Republic of China. Changes in the Second Draft represent a move to a more American-style system, including both an “open list” of exceptions to exclusive rights and a pseudo-“three step test” to which these exceptions must conform. Click here for more.
