Category Domestic Policy

A Review of Copyright Exceptions for Quotation – How Often Do Laws Include “Permitted Purposes?”

[Mike Palmedo and Margarita Gorospé] In April 2019, IIPA petitioned USTR to review South Africa's GSP benefits, alleging it fails to provide "adequate and effective" protection of copyrighted works... IIPA notes the following concern with the quotations exception in South Africa's Copyright Amendments Bill: "Section 12B(1)(a) provides a broad and circular exception for quotation, permitting any quotation provided that 'the extent thereof shall not exceed the extent reasonably justified by the purpose,' but without enumerating the permitted purposes, for example, criticism and review." However, this type of language is not uncommon.

Germany sets bad example with the proposed implementation of the new education exception

[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.

Post-Hearing Statement to USTR, re: Generalized System of Preferences Review of South Africa

[Sean Flynn and Peter Jaszi] This statement provides additional information in regard to the complaint by IIPA against South Africa in both the GSP docket... As explained by the many participants in the public hearing, all of the issues complained about in the Copyright Amendments Bill (CAB) have analogues in U.S. law or in the law of other countries that have not been challenged by the U.S. (including in the Special 301 process or in any WTO or other trade forum). Accordingly, sanctioning South Africa for these rules would lack a “general” basis and could also be considered arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedures Act.

Testimony to Special 301 Committee, Responding to IIPA’s Request to Place South Africa on the Priority Watch List

IIPA has asked you to list South Africa on the second highest designation – on the Priority Watch List... USTR has not listed South Africa, or any Sub-Saharan African country, on any 301 list dating back to 1999. This should raise two key questions for you. What changed after 1999? What has happened since that would justify USTR altering its judgment?

Does Copyright Require Authorization to Use Data “Subsisting in Copyright Works?”

The World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva has requested comments on a series of questions about whether “use of the data subsisting in copyright works without authorization for machine learning constitute an infringement of copyright?” I have joined other copyright experts in a submission to WIPO commenting on their questions. This note explains in more detail some of my reservations about use of the phrase “use of the data subsisting in copyright works without authorization” in WIPO’s questions and in our general thinking about the relation between copyright and text and data mining.

Reconstructing Rights: Project Synthesis and Recommendations

[P. Bernt Hugenholtz and Martin Kretschmer] Abstract: ... This introductory chapter gives an overview of a collaborative research project (‘Reconstructing Rights’) that normatively examined the core economic rights protected under EU copyright law, with the aim of realigning these rights with economic and technological realities. Five ‘borderline’ cases are being examined to explore the implications of different theoretical models: (1) Digital Resale; (2) Private Copying; (3) Hyperlinking and Embedding; (4) Cable Retransmission; (5) Text and Data Mining.

Post-Hearing Statement to USTR, re: Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) Review of South Africa

[Sean Flynn and Peter Jaszi] This statement provides additional information in regard to the complaint by IIPA against South Africa in both the GSP docket... As explained by the many participants in the public hearing, all of the issues complained about in the Copyright Amendments Bill (CAB) have analogues in U.S. law or in the law of other countries that have not been challenged by the U.S. (including in the Special 301 process or in any WTO or other trade forum). Accordingly, sanctioning South Africa for these rules would lack a “general” basis and could also be considered arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedures Act.

Statement to USTR at Review of South Africa’s GSP Benefits

Here, you are presented with quite a conundrum. The IIPA accepts that the US complies with international law with a fair use clause in addition to many specific exceptions, but argues that these same factors render the South Africa bill a violation of international law.

Chinese Court Rules that AI Article Has Copyright

A court in the Chinese city of Shenzen has decided that an article that was written by an artificial intelligence program has copyright protection. The article was written by Tencent’s Dreamwriter AI Writing Robot, an internal code at the Chinese tech giant that produces half a million articles per year in subjects such as weather, finance, sport, and real estate.

Request to Testify and Public Comment, re: GSP Review of South Africa

...I would like to start with the standard of review in this matter. As noted in the Federal Register Notice, and as included in the relevant statutes, the statutory standard is “adequate and effective intellectual property” ... The plain language of the statutes would suggest that this is a minimum standard. South Africa has a full panoply of intellectual property rights statutes that meet the requirements of all relevant international treaties. The inquiry should end there.

Comment to USTR for the 2019 GSP Review of South Africa

[Mike Palmedo and Andres Izquierdo] Our submission demonstrates that it is common for countries to allow the use of copyrighted works for educational purposes – even full works – without the authorization of the copyright owner. We reviewed the copyright laws all the Members of the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) and the WIPO Group of Latin American and Caribbean Countries (GRULAC) – a total of 38 countries.