Original news and analysis on international IP policy
This is a description
South Africa could become the first developing country to permit authors to be paid when libraries lend their books if an authors’ group gets it way, but the proposal is likely to spur strong opposition from access-to-knowledge advocates and libraries.
Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE), a high-impact nonprofit organisation focussed on access to software in the broader scope of participation in the digital society, this week named named new leadership for the first time in nearly a decade since its inception.
本周，世界海关组织将努力达成协议，就反假冒伪劣和剽窃问题成立一个软化的工作组，代替以前的工作组，以便可以化解人们有关海关官员手伸得太长的关切。它还将考虑通过一项建议，在执法活动中把重点明确放到公共卫生和安全方面。
Esta semana la Organización Mundial de Aduanas (OMA) tratará de llegar a un acuerdo sobre un grupo de sustitución más flexible para la lucha contra la falsificación y la piratería que podría calmar las preocupaciones sobre la extralimitación de los funcionarios de aduanas. Asimismo, estudiará una propuesta para agregar un énfasis explícito en materia de salud pública y seguridad a sus actividades de ejecución.
Cette semaine, l’Organisation mondiale des douanes (OMD) va essayer de parvenir à un accord sur la constitution d’un nouveau groupe de lutte contre la contrefaçon et le piratage plus flexible. Un consensus pourrait mettre fin aux inquiétudes qui entourent le champ trop étendu des responsabilités attribuées aux préposés des douanes.
Video is becoming an increasingly important communication tool on the web, but questions must be asked about its future, said speakers a recent conference. Will it be a medium of self-expression, available for all, or a translation of television to the internet, where content is provided by some and consumed by the rest? A gathering of technologists, academics, filmmakers and others in New York last week issued a call for a freer video culture.
ستحاول منظمة الجمارك العالمية هذا الأسبوع التوصل إلى اتفاق بشأن فريق بديل مخفف ضد التقليد والقرصنة من شأنه أن يبدد القلق إزاء التجاوز من قبل موظفي الجمارك. وستنظر المنظمة أيضا في اقتراح يتعلق بإضافة تركيز صريح على الصحة العامة والسلامة إلى أنشطتها المتعلقة بالإنفاذ.
The World Customs Organization this week will try to reach agreement on a softened replacement group against counterfeiting and piracy that may defuse concerns of overreaching by customs officials. It also will consider a proposal to add an explicit focus on public health and safety to its enforcement activities.
The German Parliament on Thursday evening passed legislation that obliges internet service providers (ISPs) to filter websites allegedly containing child abuse material, by a vote of 389 to 146. The vote followed fierce debate about the secret filtering list to be put together by the German Federal Police and transmitted to ISPs once a day with only occasional checks by a five-member monitoring body. Opposition parties joined civil rights organisations in warning that Germany is introducing blocking architecture that was extensible and could be used to “censor“ other content without due process.
BANGKOK - Thailand plans to toughen its intellectual property protection law to punish, for the first time, buyers of products that breach copyright and trademark laws, aiming primarily at pirated music and movies and fake brand-name goods, a senior Thai official said Thursday.
A well-liked and influential IP policymaker in Geneva will head Chile’s national IP office, a US lawyer responsible for perhaps the world’s biggest industry patent portfolio will head the US IP office, and a fixture in the Geneva international trade negotiating and lobbying community is heading home to Canada.
After months of private consultations, it was no surprise that the World Intellectual Property Organization Coordination Committee – the 83-member executive body – easily approved the director general’s new cabinet this week, albeit with a few notes for the future. And a previously prepared plan for financial disclosure by upper staff also sailed through. But the bulk of discussions over the intense two-day meeting were on details of a proposal by the director general to encourage a reduction in staff in the face of the global economic crisis, which members approved after long consideration and some modifications.