Copyright and Education in Europe: 15 Everyday Cases in 15 Countries
[Teresa Nobre] Today we publish the findings of a new study carried out by Teresa Nobre that intends to demonstrate the impact exerted by narrow educational exceptions in everyday practices. She accomplishes this purpose by analysing 15 educational scenarios involving the use of protected materials under the copyright laws of 15 European countries: the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain and the United Kingdom. Click here for more.
WHO Members Urged To Support Resolution Delinking Cancer Drug Prices From R&D Costs
[Catherine Saez] A group of civil society organisations and health experts have sent a letter to delegates to this month’s annual World Health Assembly urging support for a study on the delinkage of the costs of research and development from the prices of cancer medicines. Member states reportedly met on the issue today and are still undecided. During the upcoming World Health Assembly, taking place from 22-31 May, a resolution on cancer is expected to be before the Assembly, following a discussion in January at the World Health Organization Executive Board with no consensus on the language. Click here for more.
Statement to SCCR 34 on Copyright in the Digital Environment
[Sean Flynn] I would like to support that aspect of the GRUAC proposal that focuses on the role of limitations and exceptions in the digital environment as a top priority for this committee. There is an increasing recognition that so-called non-expressive uses – uses necessary for technological processes that do not compete with the copyright owner – are necessary to enable the internet and the services that are offered over it. Click here for more.
See also: Flynn’s Statement to SCCR on Educational Exceptions to Copyright. Link.
MSF Response on RCEP Negotiations in the Philippines
[Médecins Sans Frontières] The Philippines is set to host the 18th round of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) trade agreement’s negotiations in Manila this week. …Japan and South Korea are pushing for measures that go beyond what is required by the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS), called ‘TRIPS-plus.’ This would mean extending drug corporations’ patent terms and entrenching new monopolies in the national drug regulatory system (‘data exclusivity’) in countries like India, leading to a delay in generic competition, which translates into high drug prices for people across the world. Click here for more.
The American Public Domain and the Courtesy of the Trade in the Nineteenth Century
[Robert Spoo] Abstract: The chapter explores the founding rules of America’s protectionist copyright law, which openly encouraged the unauthorized reprinting of new foreign works, generated frenzied competition for those free resources, and set in motion a counter-practice of self-restraint among American publishers that came to be called the courtesy of the trade. As a way of regulating destructive competition for unprotected titles, and to give themselves an aura of respectability and fairness, the major publishers adopted trade courtesy, whereby, in its simplest form, the first publisher to announce plans to issue an American edition of an unprotected foreign work acquired informal title to that work — a kind of makeshift copyright grounded on tacit trade agreements and community-based norms. Click here for more.
