[Electronic Information for Libraries] In October 2019, the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) released a new Model Law on Copyright and Related Rights. EIFL reviewed the ARIPO Model Law against EIFL’s ‘Core Library Exceptions Checklist’ that sets out provisions that every copyright law should have to support modern library activities and services.
[Teresa Nobre] A few weeks ago, the German government shared its proposal for the implementation of some of the provisions of the new Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive, including the new EU education exception (Article 5 in the final version of the Directive). Similarly to what we did with the Dutch proposal, we will provide here an overview of the German proposal to implement locally the new exception. This is part of our effort to track how countries across Europe implement this mandatory exception to copyright for educational purposes.
[Benjamin Leff] Significant concern and confusion has been generated by the relatively recent announcement by the Internet Society ("ISOC") that it will "sell" its subsidiary, Public Interest Registries ("PIR"), to the private equity firm Ethos Capital for more than 1.1 billion dollars. Among other things, PIR operates the .ORG domain registry, which generates tens of millions of dollars of revenue every year. ISOC is a nonprofit charity under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, as is PIR.
On December 2, Wits University hosted a Copyright Indaba where IP experts, academics, authors, creators and other stakeholders debated the issues around the constitutionality of the Copyright Amendment Bill. ReCreate South Africa has posted the following videos of the event.
[Teresa Nobre] Last week, we launched our Guidelines for the Implementation of the DSM Directive. This is part of a series of blogposts dedicated to the various provisions analysed in our guidelines. Today we give a quick explanation of the new exclusive right granted to EU press publishers by the new Copyright Directive.
[Knowledge Commune] The Constitutional Court of Korea upheld Art. 29(2) of the Copyright Act as constitutional. The Art. 29(2) permits a public performance of commercial phonograms and audiovisual works if no profit is received in return from audience, excepting cases as prescribed by the Presidential Decree. This provision has long been under attack by music industries and European Commission.
[Jacob Flynn, Rebecca Giblin, and François Petitjean] Copyright’s underuse hypothesis is simple: that, unless publishers are assured of exclusive rights in older works, they won’t continue to invest in making them available. This of course contradicts a core tenet of classical economic theory, that investors will continue to produce copies of books (or anything else) so long as they can expect to get back more than they put in... We have now carried out the first international test of the underuse hypothesis – across the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. And, since we were analysing availability of works across jurisdictions, that enabled us, also for the first time, to examine how the availability of identical works differed according to copyright status.
[Communia Association] We are thrilled to release our Guidelines for Implementation of the DSM Directive. These guidelines explain different provisions of the new Copyright Directive and make suggestions on what to advocate for during the implementation process of those provisions in the EU Member States. They are aimed at local advocates and national policy makers, and have the general objective of expanding and strengthening user rights at a national level beyond what is strictly prescribed by the new Directive.
[International Federation of Library Associations] A major advance in the most recent European copyright reform has been the inclusion of a ‘contract override’ provision for most of the new copyright exceptions. This addresses the problem that thanks to the principle of freedom of contract, libraries can often find themselves with fewer possibilities to allow for access to, and use of, a work than the law suggests.
[Electronic Information for Libraries] In a letter to Cyril Ramaphosa, President of the Republic of South Africa, EIFL urged the President to sign into law the long-awaited Copyright Amendment Bill without delay. The Bill, amending the 1978 Copyright Act, was approved by the legislature in March 2019 and awaits the Presidential assent. The Bill introduces new exceptions for libraries, education and people with disabilities, and brings copyright rules in South Africa into the digital age.
[Electronic Information for Libraries] ...During the SCCR/39 session, and at the International Conference, three core issues emerged from the discussions: 1) there was clear recognition that L&Es are intrinsic to a balanced copyright system; 2) there was wide acknowledgement that copyright laws in many countries are falling behind in the digital age, and 3) there was emerging consensus on the urgent need to support preservation and access to cultural heritage, a core public interest activity of libraries, archives and museums.
[Sign on document circulated by IViR, University of Amsterdam] On 17 May 2019 the new Directive (EU) 2019/790 on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market was officially published (DSM Directive). Article 17 (ex-Article 13) is one of its most controversial provisions. Article 17(10) tasks the Commission with organising stakeholder dialogues to ensure uniform application of the obligation of cooperation between online content-sharing service providers (OCSSPs) and rightholders, and to establish best practices with regard to appropriate industry standards of professional diligence. This document offers recommendations on user freedoms and safeguards included in Article 17 of the DSM Directive – namely in its paragraphs (7) and (9) – and should be read in the context of the stakeholder dialogue mentioned in paragraph (10).