Category US Domestic Legislation

AELK and EIFL submit comments on Kosovo’s Draft Law on Copyrights and Related Rights (2022)

[Electronic Information for Libraries] EIFL and our partner, the Association of Electronic Libraries in Kosova (AELK) participated in a public consultation organized by the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports of the Republic of Kosovo on the new draft copyright law. EIFL and AELK submitted comments on the new draft law. Our comments concerned three areas: compliance with the Marrakesh Treaty for persons with print disabilities, exceptions for libraries, and the three-step test (that sets conditions for the use of an exception).

Farmers, Seeds & the Laws: Importing the Chilling Effect Doctrine

[Saurav Ghimire] As an increasing number of countries are formulating Plant Variety Protection (PVP) laws, a growing number of farmers are affected by plant breeders’ rights. In addition, the seed certification law also affects farmers’ relations with seeds. Discussing the farmers’ interaction with the PVP law and seed certification law in Indonesia, this article establishes that the farmers have internalised the law beyond the scope of the legal text, such that they self-limit breeding, saving, and exchanging of seeds even in legally permissible situations. Based on the chilling effect doctrine, this article argues that the related laws should be relaxed to ensure that they do not over deter farmers from exercising their rights. This article calls for both negative and positive state obligations to address the chilling effect on farmers arising from both state and private actors.

20 New Copyright Policy Recommendations

[Communia Association] This page lists the 20 policy recommendations launched in May 2022. These supersede the 14 policy recommendations that we published in 2011 and that we evaluated in 2021. The policy recommendations have been developed though a consultation process that gathered input from more than 60 academics, activists and other experts that ran from late 2021 to early 2022. This process was made possible though a generous donation by Pam Samuelson and Bob Glushko. Our policy recommendations concern themselves with measures to defend and expand the public domain, measures that protect and promote usage rights, measures to empower creators and their audiences and measures that create safeguards against copyright abuse.

Bulgaria Falls Into All the Traps Set by Article 5 of the CDSM Directive

[Ana Lazarova] Abstract: With Article 5 of the CDSM Directive, the EU legislator aspired to remedy the inherited legal fragmentation in the area of copyright exceptions and limitations, by introducing a mandatory exception for the purpose of ‘illustration for teaching’ in the digital environment. Bulgaria already had an educational exception as per the InfoSoc Directive, which was rather broad, technology neutral and unrestricted in terms of its beneficiaries. Now, the ‘digital’ exception under Article 5 is being transposed in parallel with the pre-existing one, both provisions largely overlapping in scope and with no clear collision norms available. This is yet another national implementation showing that the new exception, initially envisaged as a mandatory minimum of user rights protection, would likely exacerbate, instead of remedy the fragmented legal landscape in the EU. It would appear that the regime under Article 5 may come to do a disservice to free use for educational purposes.

An Examination of Selected Public Health Exceptions in Asian Patent Laws

[Kiyoshi Adachi] This study examines the variations within Asia of two exceptions to patent rights that are commonly justified under Article 30 of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (the TRIPS Agreement), namely the research and experimentation exception and the regulatory review (or “Bolar”) exception. Both these exceptions are important in the context of the 2001 Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health insofar as they are designed to provide flexibility to protect public health and support countries’ overall scientific and technological aspirations. The study examines, from a comparative perspective, examples of these respective exceptions in patent legislation in South, Southeast and East Asia, and identifies peculiarities in the variations among countries in these sub-regions.

Letter to Canadian Ministers Regarding Proposed Amendments to Copyright Law on Term of Protection and Education Exceptions

[Jointly signed by 25 Canadian IP scholars] As a group of Canadian Intellectual Property Law scholars, we write to express our deep concern regarding the reference in the 2022 Federal Budget to amendments to the Copyright Act. We strongly urge you to exclude the contemplated amendments to the Copyright Act from any Budget Implementation Bill and ensure that their enactment would follow the ordinary legislative process.

MARRAKESH TREATY: GETTING THE DETAILS RIGHT

[Electronic Information for Libraries] By the end of 2021, over 100 countries had joined the Marrakesh Treaty for persons with print disabilities, confirming its place as WIPO’s most successful treaty of recent times. In most countries, the next step in the legal process is for the treaty’s provisions to be implemented into national law (known as domestication), typically by introducing new exceptions in the copyright law, or by amending existing exceptions to ensure that they are Marrakesh-compliant. While national implementation can take time, it is a vital part of the legal process. Once completed, beneficiaries such as blind people can start to make practical use of the treaty, and libraries can step up their services to deliver materials into the hands of print-disabled readers.

South Africa’s COPYRIGHT BILL: KEY POLICY OBJECTIVE AT RISK

[Electronic Information for Libraries] In December 2021, the National Assembly’s Portfolio Committee on Trade and Industry called for public submissions and comments on new, substantive amendments to the Copyright Amendment Bill [B13B-2017], based on inputs from the previous public consultation in June 2021. The wide scope of the proposed amendments surprised many stakeholders because the previous consultation was clearly limited to certain, specific issues contained in reservations by the President on the constitutionality of some sections of the Bill. Instead, the new amendments effectively frustrate the exceptions enabling quotations, reporting of current events, translation, personal use, as well as activities of libraries and archives, including lending, access to digital works, making preservation copies, format-shifting and inter-library document supply.

Submission to South Africa on Copyright Amendment Bill, re: Proposed Removal of “Research” As Specifically Listed Purpose Allowed Under Fair Use

[Sean Flynn] We write on behalf of the Project on the Right to Research in International Copyright, which is an activity of the Global Expert Network on Copyright User Rights. We write to advise that Parliament not eliminate “research” from among the specifically enumerated purposes for which the fair use exception in Section 12A may be applied, and to add a reference to “computational analysis” as a permitted purpose.

Taiwan: Executive Yuan Council Passes Draft Amendments to Copyright Act and Copyright Collective Management Organization Act

[Taiwan Intellectual Property Office] In order to accommodate the rapid growth of both digital technology and the Internet, TIPO has drafted an amendment to the Copyright Act. The proposed changes factor in both international treaty provisions and the copyright systems of those countries that are ahead of the curve. With the addition of 9 articles and the revision of 37, this would be the biggest revamp of the Act in 20 years. Another law up for amendment is the Copyright Collective Management Organization Act. TIPO hopes that changes to this statute will ensure a fairer and more effective licensing market—one in which works can be easily circulated and used, and one where the rights and interests of copyright owners are fully protected. Having been reviewed by the Executive Yuan Council on April 8, 2021, both drafts will now be submitted to the Legislative Yuan for further deliberation.

Copyright in the Time of COVID-19: An Australian Perspective

[Amanda Bellenger and Helen Balfour] Abstract: COVID-19 has raised many challenges in terms of applying Australian copyright legislation and related policies to higher education context. This paper describes the experience of Copyright Officers at Curtin University and Murdoch University from the initial stages of border-control measures affecting delivery of learning materials to students in China, to the wider disruption of the pandemic with many countries implementing lockdown measures, to the current environment where remote delivery is the “new normal.”

EIFL COMMENTS ON NAMIBIAN COPYRIGHT BILL

[Electronic Information for Libraries] Following a National Stakeholder Conference to discuss the new draft Copyright and Related Rights Bill under development in Namibia, EIFL submitted written comments on the Bill to the Business and Intellectual Property Authority (BIPA), the body that administers IP (Intellectual Property) rights in Namibia. The existing Copyright Act (1994) has no explicit provisions for libraries or persons with disabilities. The review is an opportunity to address this issue and to update the law so that library users and society at large can benefit from digital developments that are transforming library and information services around the world.