CJEU on e-Lending: The Right to Lend Books Includes the Right to Lend Electronic Books
[Paul Keller] Yesterday the Court of Justice of the European Union delivered good news in a case that that eagerly watched by Librarians across the Europeana Union. In its judgement in the case VOB vs Stichting Leenrecht (C-174/15) the court ruled that rental right and lending right directive also covers e-lending. This is good news for libraries and their users as this means that (within certain limits) libraries can lend out e-books on the same legal basis as they lend out paper books. Prior to this judgement it was generally assumed that e-lending was not included in the scope of the rental right and lending right directive and as a result public libraries wishing to lend out e-books had to conclude licenses with publishers in order to do so. Click here for more.
Calzada and Gils Use Evidence from Spain’s 2014 “Google Tax” to Examine the Economic Role of News Aggregators
[Mike Palmedo] Yesterday, the American University economics department hosted a presentation by Joan Calzada of his working paper with Richard Gil, What Do News Aggregators Do? Evidence from Google News in Spain and Germany. The paper studies the role of news aggregation, in which snippets from copyrighted news stories are reproduced on an aggregator’s website, which then provides a link to each full story on the copyright-holding newspapers’ own websites. Calzada and Gils analyzed web traffic data for newspapers’ websites in Spain before and after Google News dropped out of the country following the imposition of a link fee. Click here for more.
WTO ‘Paragraph 6’ System For Affordable Medicine: Time For Change?
[Alexandra Nightingale] A range of practitioners and representatives in the manufacture of medicines, intergovernmental officials, academics and civil society representatives last week gave diverse views on the effectiveness of a waiver to international trade rules intended to ease shipments of affordable medicines to low-income countries. Alongside the first day of the 8-9 November World Trade Organization Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), the intergovernmental South Centre held a side event to discuss experiences in the implementation and the effective functioning of the system. Click here for the full story on IP-Watch.
WIPO Evaluates Its Role in Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals
[International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development] Members of the UN’s intellectual property agency debated last week a report which reviewed its progress in implementing a series of development-related recommendations, along with how the organisation will support the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted just over a year ago. The 18th Session of the World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP) was held from 31 October-4 November at the UN agency’s Geneva headquarters, with members also agreeing on a coming work programme. Click here for more on ictsd.org.
The Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement and Access to HIV Treatment in Vietnam
[Hazel Moir, Brigitte Tenni, Deborah Gleeson & Ruth Lopert] In the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement negotiations, the USA successfully pursued intellectual property (IP) provisions that will affect the affordability of medicines, including anti-retrovirals (ARV) for HIV. Vietnam has the lowest GDP per capita of the 12 TPP countries and in 2013 provided ARVs for only 68% of eligible people living with HIV. Using the current Vietnamese IP regime as our base case, we analysed the potential impact of a regime making full use of legal IP flexibilities, and one based on the IP provisions of the final, agreed TPP text. Click here for more.
