The city of Sao Paulo has adopted a law supported by REA-Brazil that requires the city to purchase open educational resources. Specifically the resources must be available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike (CC-BY-NC-SA). The law will also require future…
The draft bill proposition for a Civil Right’s Based Framework for Internet in Brazil has just reached Congress. The English translation of this version is available here. It is the result of an initiative from the Brazilian Ministry of Justice,…
The UK plans to modernize intellectual property law by implementing the recommendations in the May 2010 Hargreaves report. It announcement highlighted reforms including exceptions to copyright for private copying, parody, and text and data mining by researchers, as well as…
UK Business Secretary Vince Cable is expected to announce legislation to change British copyright law tomorrow. Press reports in the Financial Times and the Guardian indicate that the news legislation adopt some of the recommendations of the Hargreaves Report, including…
On July 11, 2011, the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) presented the results of a study (prepared by Capital Trade, Inc.) on the value of fair use in the U.S. economy. The study—which was conducted using a methodology developed…
In a video interview from the World Copyright Summit on June 8, Francis Gurry, the Director General of WIPO, makes a (possibly unintended) effort to coop the “positive agenda” terminology of advocates for the development agenda and access concerns in…
YouTube now offers people who upload video the option of licensing their videos under a Creative Commons Attribution License, which gives others the right to use and to remix the work as long as they give the credit to the…
On May 24, 2011, the European Commission unveiled a new initiative to modernize intellectual property protection. Noting that “in the last few years, technological change and, in particular, the growing importance of online activities, have completely changed the world in…
A “Review of Intellectual Property and Growth” by Cardiff University Professor Ian Hargreaves, commissioned by UK Prime Minster Cameron in November 2010, finds that “copyright law has started to act as a regulatory barrier to the creation of certain kinds…
Consumers International has published its third annual IP Watchlist, which “assesses the fairness of the world’s intellectual property laws and enforcement practices from an important yet under-represented perspective: that of an ordinary consumer.” The best-rated countries are Moldova, the U.S.,…
WIPO has solicited input “from all relevant stakeholders regarding their experience and views on the impact, orientation, cost-efficiency, management and coordination of WIPO technical assistance over the past three years.” The request for public input is part of an external…
An international open letter to Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff in support of the work of the Brazilian society and government for the cultural commons is now online: It has been signed by international organizations, academics and activists. The letter…