Members of the House Judiciary Committee have brought up concerns that SOPA will undermine the security and functioning of the internet in their opening statements at today’s markup of the bill. They also cautioned against rushing to complete the bill…
Tomorrow the House Judiciary Committee will vote on HR 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act, which would give intellectual property right holders and the Department of Justice new weapons to use against websites that host infringing content. The legislation is…
Renato Rovai, editor of Brazil’s Fórum magazine, has just posted the final draft of the Brazilian copyright reform bill on his blog. This and previous versions of the draft bill have circulated from hand to hand in the past few…
Thanks to Alex Dent for his persistence in requesting the transcript of last March’s Special 301 Hearing, which is available at Last year’s transcript is available at
Senators Cantwell, Moran, Warner and Wyden, and Representatives Chaffetz, Campbell, Doggett, Eshoo and Lofgren have released a discussion document summarizing IP legislation they are currently drafting to serve as an alternative to the Stop Online Piracy Act. It would allow…
WIPO’s Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) has completed a two-week session with progress in two areas in which advocates are seeking international agreements on limitations and exceptions to copyright. The Committee announced that it will consider input…
Ambassador of New Zealand to the United States, and former WTO Director General, Mike Moore explained today that the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP) may contain the “sequencing” of intellectual property and other provisions for some members. He made the…
In 2007, Belgian internet service provider Scarlet Extended was ordered to install a filtering system to detect and block the sharing of files that violated copyrights managed by SABAM (a collection society). The case was appealed to the European Court…
The World Trade Organization’s TRIPS Council will ask Member states to consider a request from Least Developed Countries for an extension of the deadline for their compliance with the TRIPS Agreement. IP Watch reports that Bangladesh presented the TRIPS Council…
The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure has just released the response it got from the EU INTA committee to the request to disclose the legal opinion the Committee recently received on ACTA. In what would be a shocking response,…
On November 16, the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), the controversial legislation introduced by Rep. Smith to give the executive branch and IP owners more tools to fight online piracy.…
On the eve of a hearing on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives, two releases from the research and academic community suggest that the current debate is on the wrong track. First, a new…