QUT News 29th November 2023 QUT researcher Professor Matthew Rimmer, who contributed to the Senate report on the new tobacco regulation bill, has praised the legislation as laying the foundation for law reform on regulation of tobacco and e-cigarettes. Professor…
[Sanya Samtani] Last week, in the latest instalment of South Africa’s copyright reform saga, the Select Committee on Trade and Industry, Economic Development, Small Business, Tourism, Employment and Labour at the National Council of Provinces (one of the houses of Parliament in South Africa), held a clause-by-clause vote on proposed amendments to the Copyright Amendment Bill [B13D-2017] (CAB) and Performers Protection Amendment Bill [B24-2016]. I summarise some of the salient outcomes of this vote below with regard to the CAB.
[Desmond Oriakhogba] In October 2021, I wrote about the Nigerian copyright law reform process... The reform process is now complete with the recent assent to the Bill, as the Copyright Act 2022, by the Nigerian President. The Act introduces a new vista in Nigerian copyright law as it repeals the Copyright Act 2004. How can libraries in Nigeria benefit from the Copyright Act 2022?
[Jonathan Band] Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has assented to a new copyright act that updates the country’s exceptions and limitations for the digital environment. Most significantly, the act replaces a closed fair dealing provision based on the English copyright law with an open provision modeled on the U.S. Copyright Act’s fair use right. The adoption of an open fair dealing provision by Africa’s largest producer of copyrighted material should put to rest arguments elsewhere on the continent that open exceptions are inimical to copyright industries.
[Chebet Koros, Joshua Kitili, Cynthia Nzuki and Natasha Karanja] ...The Strathmore University Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Technology Law carried out a study to determine the relationship between Kenya’s technology and copyright legal framework that affect the use of TDM research. It had four specific targets: to determine if Kenya’s technology policy promotes technology, learning, and research; to understand the prospects and plans for enabling a legal environment for research and development of technology; to assess the role of copyright law in enabling TDM research, and finally to provide recommendations for national, regional, and international copyright policies that enable TDM research. This policy brief is a summary of that study with specific policy recommendations resulting from the study.
[Vitor Ido] A conference “A Right to Research in Africa? A Week of Debates on Copyright and Access to Knowledge” took place on 23-27 January 2023 at the University of Pretoria and the University of Cape Town, South Africa. The gathering of scholars, artists, librarians, researchers and government officials had the objective to discuss the evolution of copyright law and the role of limitations and exceptions (L&Es) to advance research in Africa. The week of debates was co-organized by the South Centre, ReCreate South Africa, Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property (PIJIP) – American University Washington College of Law, Electronic Information for Libraries (EIFL), the University of Pretoria – Future Africa, the University of Cape Town – IP Unit, the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Technology Law (CIPIT) – Strathmore University, Wikimedia Foundation and Masakhane.
[Electronic Information for Libraries] Access to knowledge for millions of people around the world who are blind or otherwise print disabled continued to grow in 2022 with eight more countries - including three EIFL partner countries - joining the Marrakesh Treaty for persons with print disabilities, administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
[Michael Geist] Canadian copyright lobby groups have relentlessly lobbied the government to overturn decades of Supreme Court of Canada jurisprudence, seeking unprecedented restrictions on fair dealing that include eliminating it for educational institutions if a licence is available. In doing so, they have relied on a steady diet of misleading claims about the state of the law, the licensing practices of Canadian educational institutions, the importance (or lack thereof) of copying of materials in course packs, and the effects of fair dealing. This week is Fair Dealing Week, which provides an opportunity to set the record straight on Canadian copyright and education, backed by actual data on what takes place on university campuses across the country.
[Allan Rocha de Souza and Luca Schirru] Statutory limitations and exceptions (L&E) for copyright in Brazil are notoriously precarious. However, under the Constitutional framework, the courts have come to regard their interpretation as extensive and not limited to the situations set forth in the copyright law. As it stands now, they must be considered as a flexible set... Despite the flexible character of L&Es in Brazil, none of them directly addresses uses for the purpose of research or text and data mining (TDM). Nonetheless, policy discussions (both within the legislature and the executive) have started to address the issue, particularly in relation to innovation and the training of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems.
[Electronic Information for Libraries] EIFL has written to the President of Nigeria, His Excellency Muhammadu Buhari, requesting that he sign the Copyright Bill 2022 (SBs. 688 & 769) into law at the earliest opportunity. The Bill, which was passed by the National Assembly on 22 July 2022, overhauls and modernizes Nigeria’s copyright system. It supports the use of works in the digital environment to help foster a creative, technology-friendly ecosystem, and introduces new exceptions for libraries, education and people with disabilities.
[Deborah De Angelis] The legislative decree implementing the CDSM Directive in Italy was adopted on November 8th, 2021, and published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale on November 27th. It came into force on December 12th, 2021, amending the Italian Copyright Law. This blog post analyses the implementation of the copyright exceptions for Text and Data Mining, which is defined in the Italian law as any automated technique designed to analyse large amounts of text, sound, images, data or metadata in digital format to generate information, including patterns, trends, and correlations (Art. 70 ter (2) LdA). As we will see in more detail below, the Italian lawmaker decided to introduce some novelties when implementing Art. 3, while following more closely the text of the Directive when implementing Art. 4.
[Elizabeth Reade Fong] Legislation is meant not only to protect but to bring equity. And copyright legislation is not meant to be any different. However, the reality on the ground in a developing country like Fiji has only reinforced the inequity of access to and, more importantly, the use of information for learning and teaching and research for libraries and educational institutions. The pandemic exacerbated the situation!