Original news and analysis on international IP policy
The United Nations, International Monetary Fund and over 20 other international organisations have expressed concerns over the opening up of the internet domain name system for new generic top level domains (gTLDs) like .nyc or .news.
Another chapter of the Brazilian copyright reform is out. The third version of the draft bill leaked a few days ago to a major newspaper in the country, and a handful of academics had access to it, writes Pedro Paranaguá.
European Commissioner for the Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes today presented details on the No-Disconnect strategy of the EU which aims to support human rights activists and freedom fighters in authoritarian regimes.
The Council of Europe today alerted its 47 member states “to the gravity of violations of Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights which might result from politically motivated pressure exerted on privately operated Internet platforms and online service providers, and of other attacks against websites of independent media, human rights defenders, dissidents, whistleblowers and new media actors.”
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) should at least pursue a slow start with new top-level domains (TLDs), members of the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Technology asked at a hearing in Washington DC, today. ICANN is on track to opening the application phase for an unlimited number of new TLDs, to allow competition with the existing .com, .org, and .info for brand owners, but also communities around the world.
Self-regulation and its potential pitfalls when it comes to circumvention of due process by pushing enforcement to intermediaries was the subject of a seminar held in Brussels today (7 December).
A “clatch” is another word for “brood”, which is a not inappropriate word in the present circumstances – considering that Canada’s highest court will hear five (yes, five!) cases on December 6 and 7, 2011 that all emanate from Canada’s Copyright Board, writes Howard Knopf.
In what was termed a “marathon” session at the outset, World Intellectual Property Organization members took up a large number of copyright-related topics over the past two weeks with varying results. By the late-night end, an audiovisual treaty was on track, exceptions for libraries and a draft broadcasters’ treaty had new life, IP enforcement was going strong, but a draft treaty for print-disabled readers was unravelled.
Leading debates surrounding global efforts to stop counterfeiting and piracy of intellectual property rights-protected goods and services came into full view at the recent meeting of the World Intellectual Property Organization enforcement committee. In that debate, a long list of civil society groups has raised concern about WIPO enforcement activities.
Members of the World Intellectual Property Organization have agreed to hold highest level negotiations on a treaty to protect audiovisual performers’ rights in the summer of 2012 in Beijing, China.
European efforts to resolve three vexing intellectual property issues - copyright licensing, private copying levies and a unified system for granting and litigating patents - are gaining pace in the public and private sectors and could bear fruit next year.
In what is seen by many as a landmark decision, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg on Thursday ruled that an injunction obliging an internet service provider to install a filtering system to prevent peer-to-peer copyright violations on its network would violate European law.