Supreme Court Decision in Kirtsaeng – and the U.S. Position on Exhaustion in the TPP
[Sean Flynn] The Supreme Court decided the long anticipated Kirtsaeng case today, upholding an interpretation that the first sale (exhaustion) rule in the U.S. allows the parallel importation of copyrighted products voluntarily released in other countries with the right holder’s consent. The case helps reveal how the USTR (with approval by officials at the Copyright Office) uses trade agreements to take controversial positions in international law while explaining publicly that all the language they are negotiating in secret complies with US law. Often, the trade language complies with only one contested interpretation of what US law might be, as here. Click here for more.
See also – the webcast of PIJIP’s event on Kirtsaeng v Wiley, and blogs by John Bergmayer (Public Knowledge) and Krista Cox (Knowledge Ecology International).
Monthly Report on Copyright Reform in Poland
[Alek Tarkowski] In early February, the Polish Ministry of Administration and Digitization ended a consultation period for a draft proposal of the assumptions of a Bill on the Openness of Public Resources. The proposal initiated a heated debate on the issue of opening public resources. Of the three areas targeted by the proposal (education, science, culture), the openness of cultural works proved to be the most problematic. Heavy criticism of the proposal was made by various associations of creators and collecting societies. The proposal to make openly available publicly funded educational and scientific works faced little criticism. Centrum Cyfrowe Projekt: Polska published its statement [PL] as part of the consultations. In it, we support the idea of opening public and publicly funded resources, although we are critical of some of the proposed solutions. Click here for more
The Court Decision that Struck Down Ley Lleras 2.0
[Andrés Izquierdo] This week, the Constitutional Court published the judgment C-011/13 that struck down the Law 1520 of 2012, also known as Law Lleras 2.0., on the procedural grounds from a substantive law providing requirements of how a law needs to be passed in Congress (Act 3 of 1992). Although the dissenting votes have not been published, the judgment is in force. This ruling shows the issue in Court was to decide if a copyright bill that implements an international treaty (FTA Colombia -US) should be addressed by the Committees (Commissions) in Congress in charge of International laws and affairs, or if such law should be addressed by the Committees in Congress in charge of Intellectual Property laws. Click here for more.
Differences in Prominent US and EU Treaties Concerning Liability For Service Providers
[Matthew Webb] …The first major difference is the purpose of the sections on ISP liability in both treaties. The US treaty only gives enforcement as the purpose of the section on ISP liability; The EU treaty states both enforcement and free movement of information services… The US treaty gives an affirmative obligation to provide “legal incentives for service providers to cooperate with copyright owners in deterring the unauthorized storage and transmission of copyrighted materials,” (18.10(30)(a)) and limitations to that obligation. The EU treaty does not provide for enforcement obligations, instead it only gives obligations to limit liability for ISPs. Click here for more.
Senate Finance Committee Holds Hearing on the President’s Trade Agenda, Asks Questions on TPP and Trade Promotion Authority
[Mike Palmedo] Last week the Senate Finance Committee held a hearing on “The President’s 2013 Trade Agenda.” The sole witness at the hearing was Acting United States Trade Representative Demetrios Marantis. There was much discussion of Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) – which many Senators want to see move forward. TPA legislation will include the defining of negotiating objectives for USTR. Senators also asked about the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Trans Atlantic Free Trade Agreement negotiations. Most of the discussions about intellectual property and trade were about data exclusivity for biopharmaceuticals, which Sen. Hatch and Menendez want included in the TPP. Click here for more.
EC Working Paper – Digital Music Consumption on the Internet: Evidence from Clickstream Data
[Luis Aguiar and Bertin Martens] Abstract: The goal of this paper is to analyze the behavior of digital music consumers on the Internet. Using clickstream data on a panel of more than 16,000 European consumers, we estimate the effects of illegal downloading and legal streaming on the legal purchases of digital music. Our results suggest that Internet users do not view illegal downloading as a substitute to legal digital music. Although positive and significant, our estimated elasticities are essentially zero: a 10% increase in clicks on illegal downloading websites leads to a 0.2% increase in clicks on legal purchases websites. Online music streaming services are found to have a somewhat larger (but still small) effect on the purchases of digital sound recordings. Click here for more.
