100 Civil Society Groups Write WIPO Opposing IP-Maximalist “Africa IP Forum”
February 9, 2012 By Mike Palmedo Leave a Comment
100 civil society groups and academics have asked the World Intellectual Property Organization to postpone an upcoming Africa IP Forum it is co-organizing with IP-owning firms, their trade associations, and developed country governments. The letter warns that the agenda advanced by the sponsors will not benefit development in Africa – rather it would lead to strong IP policies that block access to medicines, access to knowledge, and freedom of expression on the internet. [Read More...]
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Enough, Already: The SOPA Debate Ignores How Much Copyright Protection We Already Have
February 8, 2012 By Margot Kaminski Leave a Comment
In the past weeks, Americans have been realizing that the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) might not have been the Great War, but a short battle in hostilities of grander proportions. This is not the first time copyright policy-making has lacked balance, lost its sense of proportion, or threatened civil liberties. It’s just the first time the Internet has won.
Two things are missing from the current conversation. First, the recent debate all but ignores the broad arsenal of responses to copyright infringement already available to rights-holders, without SOPA. Second, the public has not been informed on how America’s free trade negotiations have been used to circumvent the democratic process, accomplishing much of what SOPA was meant to do.
Click here for the full story on theatlantic.com.
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Whitehouse Posts Comments Received on Public Access to Digital Data and Peer Reviewed Articles
February 6, 2012 By Mike Palmedo Leave a Comment
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy recently issued two separate Requests for Information on public access to the output of federally funded research – one regarding scholarly publications and one regarding digital data. 377 comments were received about access to scholarly publications and 118 were received about access to data. The National Science and Technology Council will draw on the comments to coordinate policies on the dissemination of federally funded research, as required by the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010.
Click here for the Comments on Public Access to Scholarly Publications
Click here for the Comments on Public Access to Digital Data
ShareFiled Under: Domestic Policies, Positive Agenda Tagged With: Government
Paramount Pictures Planning Outreach to University Students on SOPA
February 6, 2012 By Mike Palmedo Leave a Comment
Paramount’s Vice President for Worldwide Content Protection & Outreach has sent letters to university professors regarding the SOPA/PIPA backlash, asking if the company can give presentations and hold the discussions at their schools. Says the letter: “our goal would be to exchange ideas about content theft, its challenges and possible ways to address it. We obviously think about these issues deeply on a daily basis. But, as these last few weeks made painfully clear, we still have much to learn.”
Click here for the full letter.
ShareFiled Under: Domestic Legislation, Takedown Tagged With: industry, pipa, SOPA
Resistance to ACTA in Europe Grows, Leaders Begin to Backtrack
February 6, 2012 By Mike Palmedo Leave a Comment
The BBC reports that there are over 100 protests scheduled against the Anticounterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) this week, including coordinated actions on Saturday, February 11.
To date, over 1.75 million people have signed a petition – ACTA: The New Threat to the Net – on avaaz.org urging EU Members not to ratify ACTA.
These developments follow a series of recent anti-ACTA street protests an online actions that appear to have begun chaning the minds of European leaders. [Read More...]
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“Sharing: Culture and the Economy in the Internet Age” Focuses on the Benefits of Non-Market Sharing of Digital Content
February 2, 2012 By Mike Palmedo 1 Comment
Amersterdam University Press has published Sharing: Culture and the Economy in the Internet Age, by Philippe Aigrain – CEO of the Society for Public Information Spaces and one of the founders of La Quadrature du Net. It is available in print or for free download on a site that also lets you access the source code and datasets for economic models used in the book.
ABSTRACT: In the past fifteen years, file sharing of digital cultural works between individuals has been at the center of a number of debates on the future of culture itself. To some, sharing constitutes piracy, to be fought against and eradicated. Others see it as unavoidable, and table proposals to compensate for its harmful effects. Meanwhile, little progress has been made towards addressing the real challenges facing culture in a digital world. Sharing starts from a radically different viewpoint, [Read More...]
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Treatment Access Campaign Efforts to Increase the Use of TRIPS Flexibilities for Access to Medicines in South Africa
February 1, 2012 By Brook-Baker Leave a Comment
The Treatment Action Campaign has issued a Briefing providing a great summary of the campaign launched last year trying to convince/force the S. Africa government to adopt TRIPS-compliant flexibilities in its patent regime and thereafter to use them to increase access to medicines: www.tac.org.za/community/node/3241.
People should also take a look at the wonderful Equal Treatment magazine that TAC produced about this campaign. [Read More...]
ShareFiled Under: Domestic Policies, Positive Agenda Tagged With: access to medicine, TRIPS
EC Commissioner for Trade Asks European Parliamentarians to Disregard Public Criticism of ACTA
February 1, 2012 By Mike Palmedo 1 Comment
On January 26, the European Union signed the Anticounterfeiting Trade Agreement, prompting protests both online and in the streets, as well as the resignation of the EU Special Rapporteur for ACTA, Kader Arif.
On January 30, EC Commissioner for Trade Karl De Gucht wrote members of the European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade, asking them to disregard public opposition to the deal – especially comparisons to the Stop Online Piracy Act in the U.S. – and sending two attachme