infoJustice

International Copyright Flexibilities for Prevention, Treatment and Containment of COVID-19

[Sean Flynn, Erica Nkrumah and Luca Schirru] Abstract: Most policymaking attention with respect to intellectual property barriers to COVID-19 prevention, treatment and containment has been focused on patents. This focus is reflected in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial Decision on the TRIPS Agreement, adopted on 17 June 2022, which provides a limited waiver of TRIPS rules on compulsory licences for production of COVID-19 vaccines. The original WTO proposal for a TRIPS waiver, however, explicitly applied to all forms of intellectual property, including copyright. This article outlines the numerous ways in which copyright can create barriers to addressing COVID-19. It also provides a description of international copyright treaty provisions that permit uses of copyright materials in response to the barriers identified, despite the exclusion of copyright from the final TRIPS waiver.

Rules of Engagement: Copyright and Automated Gatekeepers’ Influence on Creative Expression

[Michael Carroll] Abstract: This Essay turns questions about artificial intelligence and copyright law around. Rather than focus on algorithms as potential authors, this Essay argues for more attention to the role of algorithms as gatekeepers on social media and how creators adapt their creative choices to meet the demands of these automated tastemakers. Using TikTok’s “For You” algorithm and its role in breaking Lil Nas X’s hit song “Old Town Road” as a case study, this Essay poses the question whether algorithmic gatekeeping is simply a difference in degree or a difference in kind from an artist’s perspective. While tentative, this Essay concludes that this change is a difference in kind because of the rule-bound nature of software, the absence of transparency and accountability for algorithmic decision making, and the flawed data models that inform this form of cultural gatekeeping.

IP Reveries: Class 3: Parsing the P -‘Property’ of IPR

[Lokesh Vyas and Swaraj Paul Barooah] The IP Reveries series is an experimental ‘fun’ series set in an imaginary classroom where we are using a dialogue format to raise questions and discussions around IP that traditionally don’t find a place to get voiced either due to long standing assumptions, or due to being seen as ‘too trivial’ to discuss in more formal settings. The series is authored by Lokesh Vyas and myself in equal measure. For an introduction to this new IP Reveries series, please check the introduction post here. Classes I and II brief – In the first two classes, we tickled the term ‘IPR’ and assessed what is actually so ‘intellectual’ in “Intellectual Property Rights”. Today, we will look at the ‘P’ (i.e. property) part of IPR and check if it can get us something else.

Movement Forward on ABS for the Convention on Biological Diversity: Bounded Openness Over Natural Information

[Joseph Henry Vogel, Manuel Ruiz Muller, Klaus Angerer, and Christopher May] “Access to genetic resources” and “fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising [from their] utilization” is the third objective of the 1992 United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The expression is included in the full title of the 2010 Nagoya Protocol (NP). Neither agreement defined “material” in the phrase “genetic material” which resulted in misinterpretation that the object of access for R&D is tangible. Unfairness ensues.