Author: REPOST

UNESCO Recognizes the Importance of Exceptions and Limitations

Posted by | Oct 17, 2018 |

[Judith Blijden] … while the special impact of OER is clear, often little attention is given to the issue of educational exceptions to copyright. Copyright frameworks that lack such exceptions can be an unjust obstacle for educators, and in particular can adversely affect the creation and use of OERs. Last year, we participated in the 2nd World OER Congress with the aim to raise awareness about educational exceptions as complementary means for achieving the goals of Open Education. The Ljubljana OER Action Plan, adopted by UNESCO members at the Congress, then, did not include actions related to copyright reform. Fortunately, this has now changed.

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EU Copyright Reform Grinds into Trilogue Negotiations

Posted by | Oct 15, 2018 |

[Communia Association] Last month the notorious EU Parliament vote approved almost all of the worst measures of the proposed Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. It was a significant setback for user rights and the open internet. …After the plenary vote in the Parliament on 12th September, the Directive moves into trilogue negotiations consisting of the Commission, Parliament, and Council of the European Union (the EU Member State governments). The first official meeting of the trilogue was held on 2 October. …The trilogue bodies will work to reconcile their versions of the directive text, and a final vote will take place in the European Parliament in early 2019.

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Submission by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) on the Statutory Review of the Canadian Copyright Act

Posted by | Oct 11, 2018 | ,

[Gerald Leitner] IFLA specifically expresses support for the following points: A) Maintain the fair dealing exception for education… B) Retain the current copyright term of 50 years… C) Protect copyright exceptions from contract override and allow the circumvention of technological protection measures for non-infringing purposes… D) Provide clarity on the legal status of text and data mining (TDM)… E) Ensure e-book availability… F) Indigenous Knowledge.

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What’s Next with WIPO’s Ill-Advised Broadcast Treaty?

Posted by | Oct 5, 2018 |

[Tim Vollmer] … The current text contains many of the same damaging provisions, such as long term of protection (possibly 50 years) and little to no support for limitations and exceptions to the right which could provide needed protections for activities such as news reporting, quotation, education, personal use, and archiving. But the dealbreaker for CC is the fact that the treaty would essentially invalidate the permissions that users of Creative Commons grant when they share their creativity under open licenses, and instead gift new and unwarranted rights to broadcasting organizations that have added little or no value to the underlying work being transmitted.

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When Copyright Meets the Public Interest: A Week at the 5th Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest

Posted by | Oct 4, 2018 |

[International Federation of Library Associations] Seven years ago, at the first Global Congress, the Washington Declaration was adopted: a text by civil society that underlines the importance of the public interest within intellectual property conversations. It also makes several recommendations to ensure, for instance, that exceptions and limitations to copyright are strengthened, that the public domain’s openness is valued, and that cultural creativity is supported. Now, a couple of years later, much progress had been made but there is much left to do to achieve its goals. The Global Congress contributes to that. It is a forum for discussion on the intersection between intellectual property (copyright, patents, etc.) and the public interest.

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South Centre Statement to the Third High-Level Meeting on the Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases

Posted by | Sep 28, 2018 |

[Carlos Correa, South Centre]… More progress needs to be made to improve access to affordable, good-quality essential medicines and vaccines for all. In addition to increasing investment in access, governments should put in place supportive policies and effective regulation. In this context, it is significant that the Declaration reaffirms the right of countries to the full use of the flexibilities of the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), in line with the recommendations by the UN High Level Panel on Access to Medicines. The South Centre offers its technical support for the effective use of TRIPS flexibilities to promote access to medicines.

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EU Parliament Vote: An Unprecedented Copyright Giveaway

Posted by | Sep 14, 2018 |

[Communia Association] There is no way around it, the outcome of today’s vote on the copyright directive in the European Parliament is a big loss for user rights and the open internet. MEPs have decidedly sided with the demands of the creative industries to hand them more control over how we access, use and share copyrighted works. Out of the seven issues that we listed this morning the European parliament voted against our position every single time.

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Open Letter to Johnson & Johnson: Calling for Affordable Access to Critical TB Drug Bedaquiline

Posted by | Sep 14, 2018 |

[Medicins Sans Fronteirs] Dear Dr Stoffels: For the past decade, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has been in dialogue with Johnson & Johnson (J&J) about the critically important TB drug bedaquiline, including on access to bedaquiline for MSF-run clinical trials, compassionate use of bedaquiline for people with extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB), and routine use of bedaquiline to treat multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) in MSF medical projects. We are writing now to J&J regarding the need for all countries to secure an affordable and sustainable supply of bedaquiline given the expanded use of bedaquiline to treat more forms of MDR-TB globally.

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What’s Going on With the EU Copyright Reform for Education?

Posted by | Aug 15, 2018 | ,

[Lisette Kalshoven] The next major step in the EU copyright reform process is the vote scheduled for 12 September, when the entire European Parliament (about 750 people) will vote on amendments that are being put forward until 5 September. They will vote on amendments to the text put forward by the European Commission, which was shared back in 2016. The JURI report, which was rejected on 5 July by the parliament had several improvements for the education exception on article 4. It was, however, not nearly enough to truly make copyright work for education in Europe. For the purpose of the vote on 12 September, we need to work with the Commission text. Below we will share the three most important things to fix.

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I-MAK & Delhi Network of Positive People File Opposition to Prevent AbbVie Patent Grant on Hepatitis C Treatment

Posted by | Jul 25, 2018 |

[I-MAK & Delhi Network of Positive People] On July 21, the Initiative for Medicines, Access & Knowledge (I-MAK) and the Delhi Network of Positive People (DNP+) filed a pre-grant patent opposition with the Indian Patent Office in Delhi against pibrentasvir (PIB), part of the drug combination that forms AbbVie’s hepatitis C (HCV) product, Mavyret. Filed on the eve of the 2018 International AIDS conference, the opposition has significant implications for millions of patients and families struggling to afford and access hepatitis C treatment: if granted, a pibrentasvir patent could block generic entrants from supplying the product in India and other low and middle-income countries, where the majority of people with HCV live.

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I-MAK Comments to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on the Trump Administration “Blueprint to Lower Drug Prices and Reduce Out-of-Pocket Costs”

Posted by | Jul 23, 2018 |

[Initiative for Medicines, Access & Knowledge]… I-MAK’s years of research and successful legal challenges show that all too often, drug manufacturers hold unmerited patents on old science. This enables a few manufacturers to corner the market on entire diseases, artificially inflating the price of treatment, and blocking access to affordable generic drugs for decades. We believe America is facing two inter-related challenges: a drug pricing crisis and a patent system that is excessively tilted in favor of pharmaceutical manufacturers over patients.

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Global Innovation Divide: Can Investment In Innovation Bridge The Gap?

Posted by | Jul 18, 2018 | , ,

[David Branigan and William New] The Global Innovation Index 2018, launched on 10 July in New York, has lauded the rise of China as a model for how other low and middle-income economies can advance on innovation. Amid this optimism, however, the global innovation divide remains in step with the global income divide, raising questions for how to bridge this gap. The new index shows signs of progress.

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Global Innovation Index 2018: China Breaks Into Top 20, US Drops Out Of Top 5

Posted by | Jul 16, 2018 | ,

[David Branigan, IP-Watch]  The 11th edition of the Global Innovation Index 2018 (GII), co-published by Cornell University, INSEAD, and the World Intellectual Property Organization, was released yesterday at a launch event in New York. This year’s report showed Switzerland still at the top overall, China continuing to rise, the United States slipping, and explored how countries can vary on inputs and outputs of innovation. “The GII ranks 126 economies based on 80 indicators, ranging from intellectual property filing rates to mobile-application creation, education spending and scientific and technical publications,” according to a WIPO press release.

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People Living with Hepatitis C and HIV Challenge Evergreening Patents on Lifesaving Hepatitis C Drugs in India

Posted by | Jul 16, 2018 |

[Delhi Network of Positive People] 10 July 2018: Delhi Network of Positive People (DNP+) has filed today two patent oppositions before the Indian patent office, challenging additional patent claims by US pharmaceutical corporation-Gilead Sciences for the hepatitis C medicines sofosbuvir and velpatasvir. These oppositions challenge Gilead’s patent applications for the tablet formulation of the fixed-dose combination of sofosbuvir/velpatasvir and the polymorph form of velpatasvir.

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The European Commission’s New Proposal for Re-Use of Public Sector Information: Improving But Some Fixes Still Required

Posted by | Jul 12, 2018 |

[Katarzyna Strycharz] Today, Communia submitted feedback to the European Commission on its proposal to amend the Directive on the re-use of public sector information. This is the second time the Commission has proposed to update the legal framework for access to and re-use of Public Sector Information (PSI) since the Directive was adopted in 2003. The most important changes from the previous amendment (2013) was the introduction of a genuine right to re-use by making  all content that can be accessed under national access to documents laws reusable, and expanding the scope of the Directive to cover libraries, museums, and archives. This time, the European Commission has proposed to make more research data available, extends the scope to public undertakings (including transportation data), and further limits the scenarios in which public entities may charge for data. This proposal was preceded by public consultations (see COMMUNIA’s response). We support the proposal to amend Directive, but at the same time we want to draw attention to some issues where the proposal should be improved.

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Fair and Flexible: What We Can Learn from Canadian Copyright Law

Posted by | Jun 29, 2018 | , ,

[Savannah van Dongen]  With the EU and other states looking to modernise copyright law for the digital era, education exceptions in copyright law are a hot topic. Particularly, the second paragraph of Article 4 of the proposed directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market that gives room to educational licenses is being contested by educators, learners, and educational organisations. Canadian copyright law includes the doctrine of “fair dealing” — a unique version of a common exception.

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The Copyright Directive: Misinformation and Independent Enquiry

Posted by | Jun 29, 2018 | ,

[Martin Krechmer] A new academic statement has been released today in anticipation of the plenary vote in the European Parliament on the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive, scheduled for 5 July, 12:00. More than 200 academics from over 25 research centres, including the leading European institutes, have signed open letters opposing Article 11 (new exclusive right for press publishers) and Article 13 (new obligation on platforms to obtain licences for content uploaded by users, or prevent the availability of such content by filtering).

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