Author: REPOST

Open Access Advocates See End Of US Copyright Term Extension Act As Win For Commons

[David Branigan] Open access advocates in the United States are celebrating the expiration, and non-renewal, of the Copyright Term Extension Act, which introduces into the public domain all works from 1923, and signals an end of the practice by US lawmakers to continually extend the terms of copyright protection. Leading figures from groups such as Creative Commons and Wikimedia Foundation gathered to discuss why this shift in policy took place, and what it means for the public domain. They asserted that this change is the result of a general acceptance of the value of “the commons,” brought on in part by the era of the internet.

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OPEN SCIENCE ON THE MOVE IN SERBIA

[Milica Sevkusic] In July 2018, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development (MESTD) of the Republic of Serbia adopted a national open science policy. As the MESTD is the main national funder of research in Serbia, this policy, titled the Open Science Platform, serves as the national open science policy. The MESTD policy mandates deposits of all publicly-funded research in open access (OA) repositories, and recommends OA to research data. It also states that research institutions should adopt institutional open science policies within six months of the launch of the policy, using the national policy as a framework – and thus ensuring implementation of the national policy at the institutional level.

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Joint Letter from 71 Civil Society Groups to Congress on NAFTA 2.0 and Medicine Prices

The undersigned organizations representing healthcare providers, patients, public health experts, workers, people of faith, and consumers are committed to advancing public health and promoting access to affordable medicines. Access to affordable healthcare and medicines is one of few demands that now unites the American public. We write to you today with concern that provisions currently included in the proposed NAFTA 2.0 (referred to by the Trump administration as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement) would entrench and expand prescription drug monopoly protections, thwart competition and thus undermine efforts to expand access to affordable medicines.

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Ahead of Last Trilogue: On Balance the Directive Is Bad for Users and Creators in Europe

[Communia Association] Today we are launching a new minisite called “Internet is for the people” that provides an overall assessment of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. Our assessment takes into consideration all the key parts of the Directive. In order to do this, we analysed nine different issues that are included (or have not been included) in the proposal for the Directive: Upload Filters, the Press Publishers Right, Text and Data mining, access to Cultural Heritage, Education, the protection of the Public Domain, a Right to Remix, Freedom of Panoramaand Fair Remuneration for Authors and Performers. Each issue was then scored, allowing us to provide an overall score of the Directive based on an understanding of all elements of the proposal.

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Singapore Copyright Review – Enhancing Creators’ Rights and Users’ Access to Copyrighted Works

[Singapore Ministry of Law] The Ministry of Law (MinLaw) will amend the Copyright Act to update Singapore’s copyright regime to better support creators and the use and enjoyment of creative works in the digital age. The proposed changes include better recognising creators for their work, allowing easier access to copyrighted materials for educational purposes and supporting creators and users in the collective licensing of copyrighted works. These changes are outlined in the Singapore Copyright Review Report released by MinLaw and the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) today.

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A Huge Win for Open Data in the United States

[SPARC] President Trump today signed into law the Open, Public, Electronic and Necessary (OPEN) Government Data Act, a sweeping, government-wide mandate requiring U.S. federal agencies to publish all non-sensitive government information – including federally-funded research – as open data.

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Germany’s Non-Paper on Art. 13 Screams “Houston, We Have a Problem”

[Teresa Nobre] … Germany proposes to mitigate the negative effects of art. 13 by 1) exempting platforms with a turnover of up to 20 Mio. Euros per year from the obligations imposed by art. 13., 2) exempting platforms from liability in certain situations (e.g. if they made best efforts to obtain an authorization from the rightsholders), and 3) introducing a mandatory EU-wide user-generated content exception to copyright, subject to the payment of a fair remuneration to the rightsholders.

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Time to put a Stop to The Abuse of Orphan Drug Regulation: The Latest Scandal

[Ellen ‘t Hoen] Today, the Dutch Medical Journal (Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde) reported on the case of lutetium-octreotaat, a cancer drug developed by researchers in the Dutch Erasmus medical centre in Rotterdam. For the last 18 years, the hospital pharmacy made the medicine to treat their patients, keeping prices relatively low. But now the drug is being marketed by Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis, and its price has skyrocketed to Euro 23,000 an infusion from an original price of Euro 4,000 an infusion. This takes the price of a complete treatment of 4 infusions to nearly Euro 100,000, a price point at which health insurers no longer wish to reimburse its use.

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Education International Openning Statement to the 37th WIPO the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR)

[Nikola Wachter] … Restrictive copyright regimes and, in fact, the lack of an international copyright instrument that addresses cross-border online collaboration and exchange does not empower teachers, ESP and researchers but creates barriers for them in their daily work. For all these reasons EI endorsed TERA, a draft treaty on copyright exceptions and limitations for educational and research activities.

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New Database Documents the Power of TRIPS Flexibilities

[Ellen ‘t Hoen] Medicines Law & Policy has published an on-line database of instances of the use of TRIPS flexibilities in public health contexts, titled the TRIPS Flexibilities Database. The publication of the TRIPS Flexibilities Database merits sharing a bit of its history because it has been a work in progress for some time. The database includes cases of actual use of TRIPS flexibilities and instances in which countries planned or threatened to use them.

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Canadian Copyright Reform– Maintaining Copyright’s Legitimacy and Credibility for the 21st Century

[Pascale Chapdelaine] Professors Pascale Chapdelaine and Myra Tawfik, and nine other Canadian intellectual property scholars [1] recently co-signed a brief submitted to the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology in the context of the Statutory Review of the Copyright Act. [2] Animated by guiding principles of the need to maintain a balanced, distinctly Canadian copyright system, and to steer clear of “copyright exceptionalism,” the brief contains several recommendations of amendments to the Act. Here are excerpts from the brief and a summary of its key elements….

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Communia Endorses Treaty on Education and Research, And Asks Others to Follow Suit

[Teresa Nobre] Communia has endorsed the Civil Society Proposed Treaty on Copyright Exceptions and Limitations on Education and Research Activities (TERA), and asks others to follow suit, ahead of the 37th session of WIPO’s Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR). SCCR/37 will take place from 26 – 30 November in Geneva, and civil society advocates will propose that the treaty’s provisions be considered as a model for future text-based work by the committee… The proposed treaty aims to establish minimum standards for copyright exceptions for educational and research purposes, while at the same time affording countries significant flexibility in how to implement these obligations.

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Sanef Celebrates the Inclusion of the “Fair Use” Principle in the Copyright Amendment Bill

[South African National Editors Forum] SANEF celebrates the unanimous decision taken yesterday by the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Trade and Industry to include the principle of “fair use” in the Copyright Amendment Bill. The principle of “fair use” allows for the use of copyrighted material for a limited or “transformative” purpose such as to quote the latter or use pictures and video material in news reports, comment on, parody or criticise copyrighted work.

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Ciencia Abierta y Conocimiento Libre Para un Futuro Incluyente y Justo

[Alex Argüelles] Especialistas y activistas de la cultura libre en América Latina y El Caribe están buscando nuevas maneras de incidir en las políticas públicas ligadas al acceso a la cultura en todas sus variantes. A través de una declaración producida colectivamente, buscan establecer un referente para el avance de la región en torno a la ciencia abierta.

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Civil Society Letter to Indian Minister of Commerce & Industry Suresh Prabhu, re: RCEP and Access to Medicines

Dear Mr. Prabhu: We are writing to you as concerned people living with HIV and civil society organizations working on the issues of intellectual property (IP), trade, and access to medicines to express our serious discontent over the IP provisions in the ongoing negotiations of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). These provisions in RCEP are referred to as TRIPS-plus, and go way beyond India’s obligations under the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade Related Aspect of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). We call on the Government of India to protect the flexibilities available under TRIPS agreement in larger public interest.

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Switzerland Should Stop Pushing for TRIPS-Plus Measures in Trade Agreement With Indonesia

[Public Eye] Swiss and Norwegians civil society groups led by Public Eye and Third World Network addressed on September 11, 2018, their serious concerns in an open letter to their Minister of Trade over TRIPS-plus provisions being included in the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), currently under negotiation between the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and Indonesia. The reply from the Swiss government doesn’t address those concerns and makes some very problematic assertions. Public Eye therefore reiterates its call on Switzerland/EFTA to remove all TRIPS-plus provisions from the final CEPA with Indonesia. 

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Warning on Proposed WIPO Broadcast Treaty

[Electronic Information for Libraries] Unless the proposed WIPO treaty on the protection of television broadcast organizations has robust mandatory user rights, access to broadcast material in libraries for uses such as research and study, civic education and community information will be irrevocably harmed, said Teresa Hackett,EIFL Copyright and Libraries Programme Manager, at a recent seminar on the proposed WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) broadcast treaty.

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Effect of Open Access on Copyright Challenges and Library Budgets in Africa

[Kgomotso Radijeng] Open Access (OA) is one of the key methods of ensuring free access to information for all. There is no doubt that OA has liberated access to information and many institutions across the whole world have embraced it. OA is also increasingly becoming relevant as countries, especially the least developed, experience economic difficulties, with libraries experiencing extensive budget cuts. However, there is a gap in terms of assessing the impact that OA has had on the challenges that it is meant to address such as copyright restrictions and budget constraints. Earlier this year a small survey was carried out to find out if the use of open access resources has had any impact on alleviating copyright challenges to access to information and budget constraints.

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Copyright, Online News Publishing and Aggregators: A Law and Economics Analysis of the EU Reform

[Giuseppe Colangelo and Valerio Torti] Abstract: On 12 September 2018 the European Parliament approved the new version of the proposal for a Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market elaborated by the European Commission in 2016. In order to address problems in protecting content and improve the bargaining position of press publishers against information society service providers, the European Commission decided to intervene on rights, introducing an additional layer of copyright, namely a new neighbouring right that will cover reproduction and the making available to the public of press publications to the extent that digital uses are concerned.

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