[Section 27] BlindSA, represented by SECTION27, is going to court to fight for the rights of people who are blind or visually impaired by asking the court to amend the apartheid era Copyright Act for greater access to reading materials in accessible formats. The case will be heard in a virtual sitting of the High Court of South Africa (Gauteng Division) on 21 September 2021.
[Julia Conley] Vaccine equity advocates on Wednesday cheered as the Australian government bowed to a months-long pressure campaign demanding a suspension of intellectual property rights for Covid-19 vaccines, after the country's top trade official said he officially supports the push for a "people's vaccine." Trade Minister Dan Tehan told a group of advocates in a private meeting on Tuesday that the Australian government would support a trade-related aspects of intellectual property (TRIPS) waiver proposal, and later confirmed the news to the press.
[Global Expert Network on Copyright User Rights] We provide this comment on Clause 13, section 12A of the Copyright Amendment Bill [B13B-2017]. Section 12A is an open general exception for “fair use” of copyrighted works. This provision is largely an updating of South Africa’s current general exception for “fair dealing” with a copyrighted work. The primary improvements of Section 12A over the current fair dealing exception are (1) to open the list purposes to which the exception can apply by virtue of including the words “such as” before the list of authorized purposes, and (2) providing an explicit balancing test to determine whether a particular use is fair.
[Christina Angelopoulos and Martin Senftleben] Abstract: In line with the E-Commerce Directive and the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, the proposed Digital Services Act provides explicitly that intermediaries may not be obliged to monitor their service in a general manner in order to detect and prevent the illegal activity of their users. However, a misunderstanding of the difference between monitoring specific content and monitoring FOR specific content is a recurrent theme in the debate on intermediary liability and a central driver of the controversy surrounding it. Rightly understood, a prohibited general monitoring obligation arises whenever content – no matter how specifically it is defined – must be identified among the totality of the content on a platform. The moment platform content must be screened in its entirety, the monitoring obligation acquires an excessive, general nature.
[Vitor Henrique Pinto Ido] This policy brief provides a background, summary and analysis of the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court decision of 6 May 2021 that ruled automatic patent term extensions unconstitutional, striking down Article 40, Sole Paragraph, of the Brazilian Industrial Property Code of 1996. It concludes that this is a landmark ruling that contributes to the implementation of a more balanced patent regime in Brazil, with a positive impact on access to medicines in the country. It is an important precedent in relation to the role that courts may play in defining the contours of intellectual property protection and the TRIPS flexibilities.
[Jonathan Band] The final version of Interfaces on Trial 3.0: Google v. Oracle America and Beyond is now available for free download here. This updated version includes an extensive discussion of the Supreme Court’s April 5, 2021, decision in the case, especially its impact on software interoperability. This is the third volume of a history of the global legal debate concerning copyright and competition in the software industry.
[Sean Flynn] South Africa Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Trade and Industry has invited a further round of public comments on the Copyright Amendment Bill provisions to introduce fair use and expand limitations and exceptions for libraries, education and other public interest uses. The Committee invites submissions with reference on the expansions on the Bill’s provisions fair use and for other purposes in Sections sections 12 and 19. It also invites comments on additional sections of the Bill that may implicate the “alignment” of the Bill with the provisions of several international treaties.
[Communia Assocaition] Today, on the verge of the implementation deadline for the CDSM directive, the European Commission has published its long awaited guidance on the application of Article 17 of the Directive, in the form of a Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council. The structure of the final guidance largely follows the outline of the Commission’s targeted consultation on the guidance from July 2020, but there are significant changes to the substance of the final document. The final version of the guidance makes it clear that the European Commission has completely undermined the position it held before the CJEU, that Article 17 is compatible with fundamental rights as long as only manifestly infringing content can be blocked.
[Malebakeng Forere, Klaus D. Beiter, Sean M. Fiil-Flynn, Jonathan Klaaren, Caroline Ncube, Enyinna Nwauche, Andrew Rens, Sanya Samtani and Tobias Schonwetter] We offer the enclosed Joint Opinion on the President’s referral of the Copyright Amendment Bill back to Parliament. We address the President's reservations about the Bill’s constitutionality, as well his expressed concerns about the Bill’s domestic application of international law. We analyse each of, and only, the specific clauses in the CAB that are mentioned in the President’s letter. The question we ask and answer is whether Parliament should take action to bolster the constitutionality of any of the provisions identified in the President’s letter.
[Communia Association] Today it is exactly one month until the 7th of June, the day on which the EU member states have to have implemented the provisions of the 2019 copyright in the digital single market directive in their national laws. And while the 27 Member States have had more than 2 years to complete their national implementations so far only two of them have managed to fully implement the directive: the Netherlands adopted its implementation law in December of last year and on the 28th of April the Hungarian parliament adopted its implementation law.
[Martin Husovec and João Quintais] Abstract: Copyright law is about recognising the author’s material and non-material interests and setting the incentives for creativity right. The legislative changes in this area increasingly look as if simple linearity governs the world: what we take away from some, we automatically give away in equal part to others. The idea of redistribution is noticeable in recent legislative developments. Art. 17 of the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive (DSM Directive) is the latest policy intervention to prove this point. According to its logic, imposing stricter liability on some online gatekeepers will automatically improve the position and revenues for all right-holders. This chapter explores the flaws in such an approach by highlighting how the excessive focus of Art. 17 on big right-holders neglects and harms smaller creators.
[Timotej Kotnik Jesih and Maja Bogataj Jančič] In the last months, a few governments shared their proposals to adapt their national laws to the requirements of the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive, including to Article 5 of the Directive, which sets new minimum standards for the digital and cross-border use of copyright materials in education. Similarly to what we did with the Dutch, the German and the Hungarian proposals, we will keep tracking how these countries are proposing to implement this mandatory exception to copyright for educational purposes. Today, we provide an overview of the Croatian proposal.