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

DSM Directive implementation update: With one month to go it is clear that the Commission has failed to deliver

[Communia Association] Today it is exactly one month until the 7th of June, the day on which the EU member states have to have implemented the provisions of the 2019 copyright in the digital single market directive in their national laws. And while the 27 Member States have had more than 2 years to complete their national implementations so far
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Educators, Libraries & Researchers Praise President Biden for Endorsing Waiver of All IP for COVID in WTO TRIPS Waiver

[PIJIP] Today educators, researchers, libraries, academics and other advocates praised President Biden, USTR Ambassador Katherine Tai and the Administration for formally supporting the WTO TRIPS waiver, including for copyright. “By supporting a waiver of ‘intellectual property for COVID-19 vaccines,’ not just of patents, the statement would presumably extend, for example, to the copyright protection that can exist on computational algorithms
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Third-Way Proposals from Big Pharma and the WTO are the Same-Old Way: Commercial Control of Supply, Price, and Distribution

[Brook Baker] This Policy Brief from the People’s Vaccine Campaign, written by Prof. Brook K. Baker, is highly relevant to the discussions of the India/South Africa TRIPS waiver proposal at the WTO. The Policy Brief distinguishes between (1) industry controlled efforts to manage the global supply of COVID-19 vaccines and other health technologies that results in the inevitable consequence of
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Joint Appeal by 388 Members of the European Parliament and of European National Parliaments Urging the EU and its Member States to Support a TRIPS Waiver

One year after the adoption of the first lockdown measures in Europe, it is clear that we must urgently and exponentially increase manufacturing and availability of vaccines, tests, medicines and protective materials, and that requires wider sharing of proprietary technology and knowhow, data and resources, especially with low- and middle-income countries. We stand with the Director-General of the World Health
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Too Small to Matter? On the Copyright Directive’s bias in favour of big right-holders

[Martin Husovec and João Quintais] Abstract: Copyright law is about recognising the author’s material and non-material interests and setting the incentives for creativity right. The legislative changes in this area increasingly look as if simple linearity governs the world: what we take away from some, we automatically give away in equal part to others. The idea of redistribution is noticeable
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Expanding the Production of COVID-19 Vaccines to Reach Developing Countries: Lift the Barriers to Fight the Pandemic in the Global South

Carlos Correa, April 2021, LinkSouth Centre Policy Brief no. 2 The unfolding of COVID-19 has shown that the international system has been unable to ensure equal access to the vaccines and other products necessary to fight the pandemic. While the need for a strong response remains obvious, proposals for scaling up the production of COVID-19 […]

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