Advocating for a world where intellectual
property law serves the public interest.

Overview of 2020 Special 301 Hearing

Last week, the Interagency Trade Policy Staff Committee chaired by the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) held its hearing for the 2020 Special 301 Review... All of the documents associated with the investigation, including the request for comments, submissions from industries and countries, etc. and hearing statements are available at https://www.regulations.gov/docket?D=USTR-2019-0023. A transcript of the hearing will be posted on the
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Copyright and the Progress of Science: Why Text and Data Mining Is Lawful

Abstract: This Article argues that U.S. copyright law provides a competitive advantage in the global race for innovation policy because it permits researchers to conduct computational analysis — text and data mining — on any materials to which they have access. Amendments to copyright law in Japan, and the European Union’s recent addition of limitations on copyright to legalize some
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Germany sets bad example with the proposed implementation of the new education exception

[Teresa Nobre] A few weeks ago, the German government shared its proposal for the implementation of some of the provisions of the new Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive, including the new EU education exception (Article 5 in the final version of the Directive). Similarly to what we did with the Dutch proposal, we will provide here an overview
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Post-Hearing Statement to USTR, re: Generalized System of Preferences Review of South Africa

[Sean Flynn and Peter Jaszi] This statement provides additional information in regard to the complaint by IIPA against South Africa in both the GSP docket... As explained by the many participants in the public hearing, all of the issues complained about in the Copyright Amendments Bill (CAB) have analogues in U.S. law or in the law of other countries that
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Testimony to Special 301 Committee, Responding to IIPA’s Request to Place South Africa on the Priority Watch List

IIPA has asked you to list South Africa on the second highest designation – on the Priority Watch List... USTR has not listed South Africa, or any Sub-Saharan African country, on any 301 list dating back to 1999. This should raise two key questions for you. What changed after 1999? What has happened since that would justify USTR altering its
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Dissecting the ISOC/PIR/Ethos Transaction

[Benjamin Leff] Significant concern and confusion has been generated by the relatively recent announcement by the Internet Society ("ISOC") that it will "sell" its subsidiary, Public Interest Registries ("PIR"), to the private equity firm Ethos Capital for more than 1.1 billion dollars. Among other things, PIR operates the .ORG domain registry, which generates tens of millions of dollars of revenue
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