Author: InfoJustice Eds.

Innovation and Balance: Submission to the Government of Canada’s Consultation on Copyright, AI, and IoT

[Liwah Keller and Yuan Stevens] CIPPIC is a public interest clinic that specializes in technology law. Our goal is to advocate in the public interest for policy that promotes innovation, encourages respect for human rights, and responds to the needs of the wider public. These principles underlie the following recommendations that we offer in this submission: 1. Refrain from introducing laws that attribute authorship to AI or determine how authorship should be assigned for AI-assisted works until there is a clear and pressing need… 2. Develop a cohesive approach to liability for infringing activities that involve the use of an AI and provide an exception or safe harbour for text and data mining (“TDM”) within certain parameters… 3. Amend the prohibition on TPM circumvention to allow circumvention for uses that do not infringe upon copyright and expand the current exceptions to the prohibition.

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Civil Society Letter to President Biden: TRIPS Waiver Must Apply to All Intellectual Property Rights, Not Just Patents

[Letter endorsed by 12 civil society groups] The Administration has displayed great leadership by announcing support for a TRIPs waiver and attempting to fashion an approach agreeable to all parties. As it continues these efforts, it should resist the temptation to narrow the scope of the waiver to exclude copyrights and other rights. Ambassador Tai’s May 5 announcement expressed support for waiving “intellectual property protections,” not just patent protections. We urge the Administration to remain steadfast in its advocacy for including all forms of intellectual property within the scope of the waiver.

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Open Letter to Presidents of Latin America and the Caribbean: COVID-19 Vaccine Access

[Civil society letter endorsed by 81 organizations and individuals] …Vaccine production has been insufficient to vaccinate the entire world population, therefore we consider that it is necessary to restructure the acquisition and production models to improve the availability of doses at the most favorable price for our region, which at the same time is going through a serious economic crisis. Therefore, it is imperative that pharmaceutical companies share technology and knowledge with other qualified producers as soon as possible and it is important that the countries of the region take a firm position towards the industry.

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BLIND S.A. AND SECTION 27 CELEBRATE COURT ORDER DECLARING South Africa’s COPYRIGHT ACT UNCONSTITUTIONAL, AND ADVANCE TO CONSTITUTIONAL COURT FOR CONFIRMATION

BlindSA and SECTION27 welcome an order of the High Court of South Africa (Gauteng, Pretoria Division) declaring that the Copyright Act of 1978 is invalid for violating the rights of people who are blind or visually impaired. The case BlindSA v Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition (and others) was heard on the unopposed roll before Judge Mbongwe yesterday 21 September 2021, who made our draft order an order of the court. This is a massive victory for people who are blind or visually impaired, as well as learners with disabilities, who will now be able to access works under copyright in accessible formats more easily!

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Call for Submissions: #IPWeek Workshop on Copyright and the Digital Economy

InternetLab, Fundación Karisma, and the Ford Foundation would like to invite you to a workshop session on copyright and the digital economy held on October 28 and 29 as part of the 2021 Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest’s #IPWEEK2021. In line with the Global Congress mandate of bridging research and advocacy, the workshop will provide participants with a forum to present materials for feedback and discussion, in a structured, dynamic format, with opportunities for publication in two different tracks. Deadline – October 14, 2021.

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Case to #EndTheBookFamine to be heard 21 Sept 2021

[Section 27] BlindSA, represented by SECTION27, is going to court to fight for the rights of people who are blind or visually impaired by asking the court to amend the apartheid era Copyright Act for greater access to reading materials in accessible formats. The case will be heard in a virtual sitting of the High Court of South Africa (Gauteng Division) on 21 September 2021.

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Applause as Australia Backs Covid Vaccine Patent Waiver

[Julia Conley] Vaccine equity advocates on Wednesday cheered as the Australian government bowed to a months-long pressure campaign demanding a suspension of intellectual property rights for Covid-19 vaccines, after the country’s top trade official said he officially supports the push for a “people’s vaccine.” Trade Minister Dan Tehan told a group of advocates in a private meeting on Tuesday that the Australian government would support a trade-related aspects of intellectual property (TRIPS) waiver proposal, and later confirmed the news to the press.

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EU Proposals regarding Article 31bis of the TRIPS Agreement in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic

[Nirmalya Syam] This Policy Brief presents an analysis of the proposal by the European Union (EU) with regards to Article 31bis of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), as part of a Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health in the circumstances of a pandemic. It discusses the EU’s proposed clarifications, why Article31bis does not provide an effective solution to promote access to pharmaceutical products and possible options.

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EIFL WELCOMES WTO DECISION ON TRIPS WAIVER REQUEST

[Electronic Information for Libraries] EIFL welcomes the decision by members of the World Trade Organization​​ (WTO) to extend until 1 July 2034 the deadline for least developed countries (LDCs) to protect intellectual property under the WTO’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). Although stopping short of the full LDC request, WTO members reached consensus on a 13-year extension of the current transition period, which expired on 1 July 2021.

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Call for Proposals: Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest #IPWeek2021

From July 26 to September 10, the call for proposals will be open for the collaborative agenda of #IPWeek2021, Intellectual Property Week, the Public Interest, and COVID-19: learnings, discoveries, and challenges. This new version of Intellectual Property, Public Interest and COVID-19 Week will address the lessons and discoveries that the COVID-19 pandemic left to society, and future challenges in the post-pandemic period, in the relationship framework between intellectual property and the public interest.

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Notes from the WIPO Standing Committee on COpyright and Related Rights

[Anubha Sinha] Day 1 – Member states delivered opening statements and deliberated on the progress, substantive provisions, and method of work on the draft broadcasting treaty text. This blog post summarises positions and contentions that supported: 1) transparency in SCCR work 2) limitations and exceptions 3) addressing the object of protection and overbroad scope of rights in the draft treaty text.

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WIPO Agrees to Hold Information Session on COVID

[Electronic Information for Libraries] WIPO’s Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR/41) has just held its first – and only – meeting in 2021. EIFL was represented by Teresa Hackett, EIFL Copyright and Libraries Programme Manager, Dick Kawooya, University of South Carolina, and EIFL Copyright Coordinator in Senegal, Awa Cissé, Universite Cheikh Anta Diop (UCAD), Dakar…EIFL called for action on two agenda items: fair access to broadcast content in the proposed treaty for the protection of broadcast organizations, and for work to begin on exceptions for preservation and other priority areas. We also urged extreme caution on starting any work on the controversial issue of public lending right. In the main concrete outcome of the session, the Committee decided to hold an information session on the impact of the COVID pandemic on the cultural, creative and educational ecosystem during SCCR/42, which is due to take place in 2022.

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Academic Open Letter in Support of the TRIPS Intellectual Property Waiver Proposal

[Letter endorsed by 124 Academics] The temporary TRIPS waiver – as proposed by India and South Africa and supported by more than 100 countries – is a necessary and proportionate legal measure towards the clearing of existing intellectual property barriers to scaling up of production of COVID-19 health technologies in a direct, consistent and effective fashion. We call on the governments of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Australia, Brazil, Japan, Norway, Switzerland and the European Union to drop their opposition to the TRIPS Waiver proposal at the World Trade Organisation and to support the waiver.

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IFLA Statement on Controlled Digital Lending

[International Federation of Library Associations] Controlled Digital Lending (CDL) has become widely talked about over the last two years, and in particular in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the specific term has only relatively recently come to be used[1], forms of controlled lending have been utilised for many years, for example in the context of document supply. As such, controlled lending has helped to fulfil the mission of libraries to support research, education and cultural participation within the limits of existing copyright laws. Licensed eBooks have opened the door to a radical undermining of the traditional public interest functions and freedoms of libraries. These still exist for paper books, but with the advent of licensed eBooks, libraries are no longer free to decide when or what to purchase, with some publishers even refusing to sell to libraries. Controlled digital lending provides an alternative to a licensing approach, and so a means of redressing the balance.

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A closer look at the final Commission guidance on the application of Article 17

[Communia Assocaition] Today, on the verge of the implementation deadline for the CDSM directive, the European Commission has published its long awaited guidance on the application of Article 17 of the Directive, in the form of a Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council. The structure of the final guidance largely follows the outline of the Commission’s targeted consultation on the guidance from July 2020, but there are significant changes to the substance of the final document. The final version of the guidance makes it clear that the European Commission has completely undermined the position it held before the CJEU, that Article 17 is compatible with fundamental rights as long as only manifestly infringing content can be blocked.

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Letter from 141 Scholars to USTR, re: United States Facilitation of the TRIPS Waiver

Dear Ambassador Tai: As members of the academy, we welcome your new leadership as an opportunity to both restore the standing of the United States as a global leader as well as to build global confidence in the United States as a reliable ally. The leadership of the United States as well as the confidence over the policies supported by the United States is important at this time when the globe seems to be reeling in a crisis caused from a pandemic. The pandemic has highlighted that a public health crisis in one part of the world can affect not just global trade but also affects issues that the United States as well as the WTO stands for, in unimaginable ways. Thus, the pandemic makes it imperative for countries to find solutions to promote global collaborations during the current crisis.

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Joint Academic Opinion on South Africa’s COpyright Amendment Bill (B-13B of 2017)

[Malebakeng Forere, Klaus D. Beiter, Sean M. Fiil-Flynn, Jonathan Klaaren, Caroline Ncube, Enyinna Nwauche, Andrew Rens, Sanya Samtani and Tobias Schonwetter] We offer the enclosed Joint Opinion on the President’s referral of the Copyright Amendment Bill back to Parliament. We address the President’s reservations about the Bill’s constitutionality, as well his expressed concerns about the Bill’s domestic application of international law. We analyse each of, and only, the specific clauses in the CAB that are mentioned in the President’s letter. The question we ask and answer is whether Parliament should take action to bolster the constitutionality of any of the provisions identified in the President’s letter.

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DSM Directive implementation update: With one month to go it is clear that the Commission has failed to deliver

[Communia Association] Today it is exactly one month until the 7th of June, the day on which the EU member states have to have implemented the provisions of the 2019 copyright in the digital single market directive in their national laws. And while the 27 Member States have had more than 2 years to complete their national implementations so far only two of them have managed to fully implement the directive: the Netherlands adopted its implementation law in December of last year and on the 28th of April the Hungarian parliament adopted its implementation law.

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Joint Appeal by 388 Members of the European Parliament and of European National Parliaments Urging the EU and its Member States to Support a TRIPS Waiver

One year after the adoption of the first lockdown measures in Europe, it is clear that we must urgently and exponentially increase manufacturing and availability of vaccines, tests, medicines and protective materials, and that requires wider sharing of proprietary technology and knowhow, data and resources, especially with low- and middle-income countries. We stand with the Director-General of the World Health Organization, over 100 national governments, hundreds of civil society organizations, and trade unions, and join them in urging the European Commission and EU member states to discuss at the highest levels and support the temporary waiver of certain obligations under the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). Click here for the full statement and endorsers.

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