Copyright Amendment (Disability Measures and Other Access) Bill Passes in Australia
[Delia Browne] The Copyright Amendment (Disability Access and Other Measures) Bill 2017 (the Bill) was passed on Thursday 15 June 2017 and will become law sometime in late December this year (six months from Royal Assent)… The new law includes a number of reforms that have been sought by the education sector for years. These include a simplified, streamlined educational statutory licences; the introduction of a new exception to enable the use of copyright materials in online assessments and digital exams; and the introduction of a new fair dealing exception for people with disabilities (Including organisations assisting people with disabilities). Click here for more.
Creator, Rebel, Guardian, Unsuspecting User: Teachers and Modern Educational Practices
[Tomasz Kasprzak, Olga Jurkowska, Alek Tarkowski and Anna Buchner] Executive Summary: We asked thirty teachers from five European countries about copyright in schools. Our respondents included teachers implementing education innovations and actively using new technologies. These are our study’s key findings: The best way for teachers to gain familiarity with copyright is to become creators of educational materials. Such creators have two options – either use copyright to protect their work or share it using a Creative Commons license. Click here for more.
Leaked Draft Trump Executive Order: Reducing the Cost of Medical Products and Enhancing American Biomedical Innovation
EXCERPT: “…The United States Trade Representative (USTR), in consultation with the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and the Secretary of Commerce, and the Secretary of Commerce, shall conduct a comprehensive review of the international drug purchasing and supply system including price differentials between foreign governments and the United States, multilateral and bilateral agreements that need to be revised to promote greater intellectual property protection and competition in the global market, and potential violations of trade agreements and what enforcement mechanisms may be available to the United States under such agreements.” Click here for the full document.
See also: Comments on the leaked draft from Public Citizen, Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, James Love (KEI) and Mike Palmedo (PIJIP)
NAFTA Hearings this Week – Details and Schedule
This week the U.S. government’s Trade Policy Staff Committee, an inter-agency group headed by the U.S. Trade Representative, will be holding a three-day open hearing on NAFTA. The purpose of the hearing, as stated in the Federal Register Notice, is to “assist USTR as it develops its negotiating objectives and positions for the agreement.” The hearing runs from Tuesday, June 27 through Thursday, June 29. It will held at the International Trade Commission building, and will be webcast on ustr.gov. (Tuesday will definitely be webcast, and USTR is ‘awaiting livestream confirmation’ at the time I am writing this.) 143 people will testify. The panels with witnesses that seem the most dedicated to intellectual property run from 4:45 to 8:00 on Tuesday evening. The full schedule is here.
U.S. Lobby Groups Take Aim At Canadian Copyright Law in NAFTA Comments: No Balance, No Fair Use, & No Cultural Exception
[Michael Geist] The U.S. just completed its consultation on negotiating objectives in the upcoming NAFTA re-negotiations (the Canadian consultation is open until July 18, 2017). There are well over a thousand comments, but a review of the lobby groups who pay attention to copyright reveals that they hope to use the talks to make significant changes to Canadian copyright law. This was expected – I touched on the trade dimension of domestic reforms in my recent Policy Options piece on the 2017 copyright review – but the extent to which many groups want to toss aside foundational elements of Canadian copyright law may still surprise. Click here for more.
MPAA & RIAA Demand Tough Copyright Standards in NAFTA Negotiations
[Andy] The MPAA and RIAA have made their positions clear in submissions to the North American Free Trade Agreement negotiations. Both want allies Canada and Mexico to commit to tightened copyright law, including restrictions on safe harbor provisions that go beyond current US practice. Click here for more.
Monopoly v. Openness: Two Sides of IP Coin in the Pharmaceutical Industry
[Olga Gurgula] Abstract: The pharmaceutical industry extensively relies on the patent system. It actively lobbies for the strengthening of patent protection of its medical products and the results of its efforts may be found in the majority of bilateral and multilateral agreements, including the TRIPS and the most recent TPPA, augmented by private patent strategies pursued by pharmaceutical companies. However, some recent developments show the emerging tendency of implementing different business models by pharmaceutical companies that may mark the beginning of transformation of this industry. Among these developments is an ‘open innovation’ model, which has increasingly been followed by some research institutions and pharmaceutical companies aiming at facilitating the creation of new and affordable medicines, as well as providing transparency in order to enhance safety and efficacy of drugs. This article will discuss these two current developments in the pharmaceutical industry, i.e. strong IP protection against open innovation. Click here for more.
Copyright and Education at WIPO
[Teresa Nobre] Since not all of the materials that the teacher needs to use are (or will ever be) licensed with an open license, educational exceptions are extremely important. This is the legal mechanism that permits to balance the rights of authors with the needs of education. Yet, not all the countries have good educational exceptions. The different treatments of education by copyright laws all over the world result in huge inequalities in the way teachers can provide education and students get access to knowledge. Click here for more.
