infoJustice

More than 250 organizations and experts organizations called for the temporary reduction of copyright barriers to COVID-19 prevention, containment and treatment

Washington, D.C. – Today educators, researchers, libraries, academics and other advocates praised President Biden, USTR Ambassador Katherine Tai and the Administration for formally supporting the WTO TRIPS waiver, including for copyright. 

“By supporting a waiver of ‘intellectual property for COVID-19 vaccines,’ not just of patents, the statement would presumably extend, for example, to the copyright protection that can exist on computational algorithms needed to produce mRNA vaccines. It is less clear whether the Administration’s support extends to access to copyright for other needed activities, such as to repair software enabled devices or to enable text and data mining research. Clearly, however, this is a great advance for the cause of ensuring that intellectual property bends to the public interest, not the other way around.” said Sean Flynn, Director of American University’s Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property. 

Last month, over 250 research and education organizations around the world called on the WTO to endorse a TRIPS waiver extending to copyright to prevent and treat COVID-19. Representing over 30 million global teachers and 1,500 libraries and research institutions, the groups pointed to the importance of access to copyrighted works to stop the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, the Biden administration endorsed the thrust of that statement — supporting a waiver of all “intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines,” not only of patents. 

Additional quotations from individuals and organizations supporting the inclusion of copyright in the TRIPS waiver can be found at https://tinyurl.com/QuotesCopyrtTRIPS