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

Mexican Economy Minister on TPP Provisions on Copyright Term, Camcording, and Notice-and-Takedown

Mexico’s Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo gave a briefing in Mexico City about the state of the TPP negotiations, which he said may be completed by the end of April. He said that the Singapore Ministerial helped move the negotiations along, with potential compromises on sensitive topics identified (though not finalized). Of interest to infojustice readers, […]

Patents: Reform or Lose

[Lotti Rutter, Treatment Action Campaign, Link (CC-BY] Achieving the National Strategic Plan (NSP) objectives depends on the effective use of the national health budget. But is there sufficient emphasis on value for money in the health sector at a time when South Africa is struggling to meet its targets of placing 80% of eligible patients […]

Copyright Week: What Happened to the Brazilian Copyright Reform?

Mariana Giorgetti Valente (@mrnvlnt) Pedro Nicoletti Mizukami (@p_mizukami) Creative Commons Brazil, Link, (CC-BY-SA) Center for Technology and Society @ FGV Law School, Rio [Versão em português/Portuguese version] While open licensing can be a powerful strategy to correct some of the many distortions produced by an unbalanced copyright system, there’s only so much that can be […]

Congress passes spending bill requiring free access to publicly funded research

[Tim Vollmer, Creative Commons, Link (CC-BY)] Both the U.S. House of Representative and Senate have passed the 2014 omnibus appropriations legislation (2.9 MB PDF). President Obama is expected to sign the bill shortly. What’s so special about this legislation? Federal agencies with research budgets of at least $100 million per year will be required provide […]

US PhRMA Bares its Fangs – South Africa Patent Law Reform and Access to Medicine at Risk Yet Again

PhRMA (Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America) is putting $350,000 on the table to stop proposed patent law reform in South Africa and instead to lobby for even more monopoly protections for medicines. Why would a pharmaceutical association from the US be so interested in an African country that comprises only a tiny fraction of […]

Copyright Week: Five Reasons Fair Use Best Practices Are Changing the World

[Cross posted from the Assoc. of Research Libraries (CC-BY) by AU Professors Patricia Aufderheide, Brandon Butler and Peter Jaszi.] Copyright Week is the perfect occasion to celebrate fair use, certainly the most dynamic and arguably the most important doctrine in copyright law. The last 15 or 20 years have seen a remarkable series of developments […]