Category Information and Communications Technology/ Broadcasting

A User-Focused Commentary On The TPP ISP Safe Harbors

Annemarie Bridy writes: Section J of the Trans-Pacific Partnership’s IP chapter, on ISP safe harbors, looks a lot like Section 512 of the DMCA [US Digital Millennium Copyright Act], but the two frameworks differ in some important respects that could negatively impact the global environment for user speech online. This post offers a comparison of Section J and Section 512 with a focus on the rights of users and the status of user expression in the TPP’s intermediary safe harbor provisions.

US, China Talk Standards & IP, Trade Secrets, GIs, Broadcasting, Enforcement

The 26th United States-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT) meeting was held from 21-23 November, and covered a wide range of intellectual property-related areas, including standards and IP, trade secrets, geographical indications, sports broadcasting, enhanced enforcement against media boxes and unauthorised content providers, and online enforcement.

Nigeria Prepares To Revamp Its Copyright System For The Digital Age

Draft rules updating Nigeria's copyright law regime are expected to be submitted to Parliament in 2016, Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC) Regulatory Department Head Michael Akpan has said. While the provisions have already been thoroughly vetted by stakeholders during consultations, several are likely to be challenged, he told Intellectual Property Watch. [Updated]

Fake EFF Website Was Malicious, WIPO Panel Rules

A cybersquatter based in Indonesia who created a website falsely using the Electronic Frontier Foundation name but offering malware did so in bad faith and with malicious intent, a World Intellectual Property Organization panellist has found.

Internet Governance Forum: Ten Years After

Ten years after feeble beginnings, the Internet Governance Forum, once the baby of the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), stood last week in Joao Pessoa. But in all these years, did it also learn to walk? The IGF is more popular than ever but also perhaps more inadequate than ever at containing and advancing the many views and concerns that are raised there by a multitude of global stakeholders.

ITU: Industries Battle For Greater Spectrum Allocation At WRC-15

The mobile, satellite and broadcasting industries are campaigning for bigger shares of the finite resource that is radio-frequency spectrum at the UN International Telecommunication Union (ITU)’s treaty-making conference this month. And in an exhibition area alongside the conference, some of the world’s biggest tech companies are pitching their need for greater spectrum allocation in the hopes of influencing the conference’s outcomes. Among them is Facebook's Internet.org project.

Users, Governments Give Views On Internet Governance Going Forward

As governments at the United Nations negotiate outcome documents for the 10 year review of the 2005 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), the rest of the stakeholders of the global internet are fighting for a voice, especially users. A recent event alongside the WSIS talks explored the user perspective, and discussed the future of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), the annual meeting taking place this week in Brazil.

New Internet Domain Reservations: There Can Only Be One – Or Not?

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), standardisation body for the internet protocol and related specifications, is concerned about stepping on the toes of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) with a potentially growing number of requests for new top-level domain (TLD) reservations arriving at its doorstep. The recent reservation of a special name space .onion for the Tor anonymization network resulted in a big debate at last week’s meeting of the IETF Domain Name Operations Working Group (DNSOP WG) in Yokohama, Japan. The debate was over how to preserve clear boundaries between DNS politics and the IETF technical standardisation.

African Ministers IPR Conference Addresses Issues For African Creators

DAKAR, Senegal -- The World Intellectual Property Organization 2015 African Ministerial Conference on Intellectual Property for Emerging Africa took place last week in Dakar, the Senegalese capital where around 50 ministers gathered as well as 200 participants. Among the many themes addressed, the conference called for better recognition of the rights of artists and creators. Musicians called for a strong musicians’ union to better defend their rights, advocating for a reform of African legislation on copyright. And Africa must boost its creativity and innovation to produce sports content by learning on what others are doing, panellists said.

Could Cross-Border Extended Collective Licensing Open Digital Treasure Troves?

STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- Libraries and archives are increasingly important in the digital era, but without better access to their vast reservoirs of data and materials for research and education, “we are going to lose out,” Anne Leer, World Intellectual Property Organization deputy director general, culture and creative industries sector, said at a conference hosted this week by the National Library of Sweden and Stockholm University. The 5-6 November event looked at whether cross-border copyright collective rights management might be an effective mechanism for accessing digital archives and libraries.