InfoJustice Roundup – June 11, 2019

South Africa’s Copyright Amendment Bill: Its Genesis and Passage Through Parliament

[Denise Nicholson] The reform of copyright law in South Africa, particularly for the library and educational sectors, has been a long and bumpy road since 1998. Our copyright law is 41 years old – and broken! The exceptions for education, research, and libraries and archives have not been amended since 1978. The Act has no provisions for people with disabilities, nor provisions for galleries and museums. Being so old, it obviously does not address the digital world. “Fair dealing” in Section 12 of the Act is outdated, limited and not ‘future-proof’. Click here for more.

Mapping the New Frontier of International IP Law: Introducing a TRIPS-Plus Dataset

[Jean-Frédéric Morin and Jenny Surbeck] Abstract: This article introduces a new dataset on the intellectual property (IP) provisions included in preferential trade agreements (PTAs) and makes it available for research and policy communities alike. Several PTAs include IP commitments that go well beyond the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs). A sound knowledge of these TRIPs-plus commitments is essential in order to improve our understanding of what drives them and of their legal, social, and economic consequences. Yet, until now, these provisions have not been mapped in a comprehensive and systematic way. Click here for more.

What Happens When Books Enter the Public Domain? Testing Copyright’s Underuse Hypothesis Across Australia, New Zealand, the United  States and Canada

[Rebecca Giblin] Abstract: The United States (‘US’) extended most copyright terms by 20 years in 1998, and has since exported that extension via ‘free trade’ agreements to countries including Australia and Canada. A key justification for the longer term was the claim that exclusive rights are necessary to encourage publishers to invest in making older works available — and that, unless such rights were granted, they would go underused. This study empirically tests this ‘underuse hypothesis’ by investigating the relative availability of ebooks to public libraries across Australia, New Zealand, the US and Canada. Click here for more.

WHO: Countries Raise Concerns about Access to Affordable Drug-Resistant TB Treatment

[Third World Network] Member states participating in the 72nd World Health Assembly (WHA) renewed their commitment to end tuberculosis (TB) while expressing serious concerns about drug-resistant TB (DR-TB), the treatment of which is presently costly and beyond the reach of many national TB programmes… Bedaquiline and delamanid are extensively patented in countries with a high TB burden such as China, India, Indonesia etc, blocking entry of generic competition and more affordable sources of the treatment. Members states and civil society interventions during the WHA reflected the challenges they face in this regard. Click here for more.

The Authoritative Canadian Copyright Review: Industry Committee Issues Balanced, Forward-Looking Report on the Future of Canadian Copyright Law

[Michael Geist] In December 2017, the government launched its copyright review with a Parliamentary motion to send the review to the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology. After months of study and hundreds of witnesses and briefs, the committee released the authoritative review with 36 recommendations that include expanding fair dealing, a rejection of a site blocking system, and a rejection of proposals to exclude education from fair dealing where a licence is otherwise available. The report represents a near-total repudiation of the one-sided Canadian Heritage report that was tasked with studying remuneration models to assist the actual copyright review. While virtually all stakeholders will find aspects they agree or disagree with, that is the hallmark of a more balanced approach to copyright reform. Click here for more.

Cystic Fibrosis Buyers Club Shows the UK Government The Way

[Ellen ‘t Hoen] The move by a group of parents of children with cystic fibrosis (CF) to set up a buyers club to gain access to treatments is making headlines in the UK. According to the website of the brand new initiative, the club will provide information that allows people living with cystic fibrosis to access more affordable, but quality-assured, generic versions of modulator medicines including ivacaftor (Vertex brand name Kalydeco) and ivacaftor-lumacaftor (Vertex brand name Orkambi). UK law allows the importation of medicines that are not registered in the UK as long as it is for personal use, including generic versions of medicines that are patented in the UK. Click here for more.

UNESCO OER Recommendation: One Step Closer to Adoption

[Cable Green] On May 28, 2019, UNESCO member state representatives took an important step for open education by adopting the 2019 UNESCO OER Recommendation, providing unanimous approval to bring it to the next General Assembly. UNESCO has a strong history in open education, having coined the term OER in 2002, passed the 2012 Paris OER Declaration, and co-hosted (with Slovenia) the 2017 OER Global Congress. Click here for more.