Reposted with author’s permission from the Socio-Legal Newsletter Concern about access to educational materials has regularly been in the news. Whether it is the ‘cost of knowledge’ campaign focusing on Elsevier’s blanket licence policy[1] or the suicide of Aaron Swartz.[2]…
There are a series of meetings at the Creative Commons Global Summit this week on promoting the public interest and protection of the public domain in copyright reform. PIJIP has been working for two years on research and advocacy promoting…
Yesterday it was announced that negotiators had reached “miracle” conclusion for a new international treaty for the visually impaired. This agreement was reached under conditions of unprecedented (although not always perfect) transparency and public participation. And according to initial stakeholder opinions…
As the Trans Pacific Partnership creeps toward an end game (which appears far off) it may be worth spending more time discussing positive proposals for amending the proposal in various ways. I have previously written on ideas for positive proposals…
[Posted to MichaelGeist.ca, (CC-BY)] Months after the Supreme Court of Canada delivered a stinging defeat to Access Copyright by ruling for an expansive approach to fair dealing and the government passed copyright reforms that further expanded the scope of fair…
Our Colombian Colleagues Marcela Palacio Puera, Andres Izquierdo, and Carolina Botero have drawn our attention to the breaking news that the Colombian Constitutional Court has struck down the Free Trade Agreement Copyright implementation bill known as “Lley Lleras 2” on…
Tobacco giant, Philip-Morris, brought actions this year under investor-State arbitration mechanisms in investment treaties to challenge laws limiting (in Uruguay) or prohibiting (in Australia) the display of its trademarks in tobacco packaging. This has caused the Australian government to take…
On July 6, 2012, China’s National Copyright Administration published a Second Draft for a new (third) revision (Chinese version) to the Copyright Law for the People’s Republic of China 《中华人民共和国著作权法》. Once adopted, this will become the Third Revision to the…
Fernando Quirós reports in the Tico Times that President Chinchilla of Costa Rica has signed a decree to protect photocopying of textbooks. A new law was recently passed to bring the nation into compliance with the Central American Free Trade…
By Sean Flynn, with translation assistance of Lina Diaz and Sofia Castillo, American University Washington College of Law Yesterday, in a situation a similar to Colombia’s rushed passage of “Ley Lleras 2,” the Panamanian Congress sprinted to finalization of an incredibly…
Dear Ambassador Kirk: We appreciate having had the opportunity to meet recently with members of the Administration regarding the position the United States has taken concerning limitations and exceptions in copyright law as part of the Intellectual Property chapter of…
In an unprecedented action the Colombian Copyright Office opened a consultation process for citizen participation on the instrument for limitations and exceptions to copyright for the visually impaired that is currently in discussions at WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and…