Original news and analysis on international IP policy
This is a description
By William New The World Intellectual Property Organization enforcement committee last week heard from a series of intellectual property rights enforcers and others before attempting unsuccessfully to agree on the future work and moving to consultations till February. Meanwhile, separate…
By Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch Intellectual property and computer law barrister Peter Dengate-Thrush has been elected as new Chairman of the Board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The former chairman of InternetNZ, the…
By Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch The upcoming second Internet Governance Forum in Rio de Janeiro will have a very broad agenda with over thirty workshops, 22 best practice forums and 10 meetings of dynamic coalitions specialising in key…
By Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch Even the “father of the Internet” could not find a solution to the ongoing fight over the so-called Whois database, which allow checks on who has registered Internet domain names. When Vinton Cerf…
By Dugie Standeford for Intellectual Property Watch
The European system for licensing copyrighted music is in "huge confusion" following the rejection by content users and smaller collecting societies of a proposed model contract for collective management of music on cable, satellite and the Internet, Thierry Desurmont, vice president of the board of France's Societe des Auteurs, Compositeurs et Editeurs de Musique, said this week.
Desurmont spoke along with others at a 22 October Chatham House/International Institute of Communications conference on trends in global communications in London.
By William New Hundreds of employees at the World Intellectual Property Organization, a prominent United Nations agency, have signed a petition calling on WIPO Director General Kamil Idris to put the organisation’s interests before his own in addressing allegations that…
OTTAWA – The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Paris-based club of 30 of the world’s largest economies, is moving fast to keep up with the newest trend on the Internet: user-generated content. Referred to generally as ‘Web 2.0’,…
By David Cronin for Intellectual Property Watch The United States has decided to step up its challenge to China’s restrictions on copyright-protected books, music and films by asking the World Trade Organization to establish a dispute settlement panel. During June…
By Alicia Martin-Santos and Dugie Standeford for Intellectual Property Watch
European Union countries are imposing copyright levies on a whole new range of digital media, including digital music players, USB flash sticks, hard drives and, potentially, mobile phones and wireless connections, as efforts to harmonise Europe's heterogeneous copyright landscape continue to languish.
Copyright levies are imposed on blank material (such as blank CDs, DVDs or paper) or digital recording media (used to store digital content) in order to compensate authors for end-users' private copying. They first appeared in the 1960s and were charged on paper, photocopying equipment and tapes. New recording media, such as mp3 players (like iPods) or even mobile phones are being examined for potential levying.
Pour la version française, cliquer ici Where are you Director General? For the first time in WIPO’s history, the Assemblies were unable to agree on the adoption of the budget of the Organization. For the first time, the member states…
By Sisule F. Musungu On Friday, 28th September 2007 the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) General Assembly finally adopted a development agenda for WIPO. The Assembly adopted a set of 45 proposals under six clusters, namely: technical assistance and capacity…
By Catherine Saez
The growing volume of audiovisual, musical or text-based content online offers opportunities and challenges to copyright owners, intermediaries such as search engines, and users, according to panellists at a recent World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) seminar. Among the challenges are the ownership, licensing and management of intellectual property.
Rights Management Information (RMI), as defined in the 1996 WIPO "Internet" treaties, identifies content protected by copyright or related rights, the rights owners for such content and the terms and conditions of use associated with it. RMI is playing an essential role in protecting copyrights in the network environment, according to panellists, most of whom were from an industry perspective.