WEBINAR: De-Gentrified Black Genius – Blockchain, Copyright & the Disintermediation of Creativity

[Hosted by PIJIP, March 25, 10am EDT] Professor Tonya Evans will present her article “De-Gentrified Black Genius”, which explores the paths of artists who leveraged opportunity through assignments and licenses, and later, artists who exercised their termination rights to secure a better deal with the original transferee, terminated and entered into contracts with other transferees, or went it alone and exploited their copyrights on their own.  The termination right clearly benefits all copyright creators; however, members of marginalized and disenfranchised communities may stand to benefit even more from the second bite of the copyright apple.  The article assert that utilizing blockchain’s decentralized technology, smart contracts, and non-fungible token standards can better protect Black artists against disenfranchisement at the hands of a codified system of intentional friction to discourage or deny the reclamation of rights. Professor Evans is a Professor at Penn State Dickinson Law School. Click here for more.

Statement by PIJIP Director Sean Flynn on the Proposed Compromise on TRIPS Waiver Negotiations

“The proposal to reach an agreement on a TRIPS waiver is a bit of a misnomer since it largely affirms and adds new requirements to TRIPS rather than waive its provisions. The proposal fails to accept the requests of researchers and access to knowledge organizations that the waiver extend to all intellectual property for vaccines, treatments and devices needed to combat COVID. Click here for more.

See also: Other Statements on the Proposed Compromise Deal in TRIPS Waiver Negotiations

VIDEO: Copyright and Disability

On February 25th, PIJIP hosted an online event on the intersection of copyright and the rights of disabled people to obtain accessible versions of books and other copyrighted works. Blake E. Reid, Director of Colorado Law’s Samuelson-Glushko Technology Law & Policy Clinic opened the event with a presentation of his paper “Copyright and Disability.” A panel discussion followed, featuring Jack Bernard (University of Michigan), Caroline Ncube (University of Cape Town) and Victoria Phillips (American University Washington College of Law). The video is now available here.

Lessons From the Pandemic for LDCs: Implementing Intellectual Property Flexibilities

[Sangeeta Shashikant] The global crisis of COVID-19 has underscored the vital importance of utilizing, to the fullest extent, policy space in the area of intellectual property. Since the onset of the pandemic, many countries around the world have had to confront various challenges of access including to tools protected by intellectual property (IP). These include copyrighted materials as learning shifted to online platforms, and affordable health products and technologies to prevent and treat the infection. The pandemic has also accentuated the significance of local production as limited supplies of critical commodities are rapidly snapped up by developed countries. Since March 2020, the least developed countries (LDCs) have perhaps struggled the most with limited financial resources, facilities and technological capacity to contain the pandemic and deal with its socioeconomic impacts. Click here for more. 

35 Generic Manufacturers Sign Agreements with MPP to Produce Low-Cost, Generic Versions of Pfizer’s Oral COVID-19 Treatment Nirmatrelvir in Combination with Ritonavir
[Medicines Patent Pool] The Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) announced today that it has signed agreements with 35 companies to manufacture the generic version of Pfizer’s oral COVID-19 treatment nirmatrelvir, which in combination with a low dose of ritonavir can be supplied in 95 low- and middle-income countries. The sublicence agreements are the result of the voluntary licensing agreement signed by MPP and Pfizer in November 2021 that will help enable the supply of the medicines to countries comprising approximately 53% of the world’s population. Click here for more.

Extraterritoriality: Intellectual Property
[Timothy R. Holbrook] Abstract: Intellectual property rights, particularly patents, copyrights, and trademarks, have been the subject of international treaties for quite some time. Those treaties all treat intellectual property rights as national in nature, with attendant territorial limits. … For extraterritoriality, that means that the use of one nation’s intellectual property to leverage control over the acts and markets of another have significant implications for sovereignty. These concerns could be vindicated through a robust use of conflicts of law in extraterritorial jurisprudence. The role of conflicts has been, at best, unclear in U.S. law. This chapter suggests, however, that when the conflict is one over the validity within the foreign country, conflict concerns should be at their apex. In other words, why should one jurisdiction allow an IP right holder to leverage a right into a country that would find that right invalid? This dynamic goes beyond merely holding someone liable for acts in a foreign country; it directly undermines the political choices of that sovereign in a far more significant way. Click here for more.

Publishing Giants Are Fighting Libraries on E-Books

Last year, Maryland lawmakers unanimously passed a bill that aimed to help public libraries offer e-books and audiobooks to patrons. Publishers were charging libraries three to five times as much as consumers pay for an e-book, and for only a two-year license, state legislators showed. The law, signed in May, would require publishers to license electronic literary products to Maryland public libraries “on reasonable terms.” A similar measure in New York was also passed, virtually unanimously, over the summer, with 210 state legislators in favor and one voting nay—only to be vetoed in the last days of the year by Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul. Click here for the full story on Sludge.