sutton044

“ There is nothing new under the sun ”. In copyright law, this declaration from the Book of Ecclesiastes  t ranslates into an awkward tension between the need to limit slavish copying (to prevent free-riding), on the one hand, and the need to allow a degree of derivative creation, on the other (to avoid stifling creativity). But where do we draw the line? This is the fraught question that Omri Rachum-Twaig addresses in his recent book, “Copyright law and derivative works ”. The author revisits the right to make derivative works through the lenses of cognitive psychology and genre theory, both of which study creativity. The author argues that copyright law has much to learn from these two disciplines, both in the way that they understand creativity and how to best encourage it. "Why these two fields", you ask? Perhaps, according to the author, it is because each of them investigates a different aspect of creativity: cognitive psychology focuses on creativity as a process, whi...

Pinocchio, arguably one of the first cases of AI, and his Kat Figaro   Artificial Intelligence and copyright: best friends, enemies, or ... frenemies? Find out by attending this new joint IPKat/ BLACA event, which will take place at London’s ReedSmith offices in the evening of Thursday, 10 January 2019. The event, which will be led by Gaetano Dimita (Queen Mary University of London) and myself, will start with talks by: Mark Grierson (UAL Creative Computing Institute) on the technical potential of AI creativity, and David Price (Google) on the relationship between copyright and text and data mining. The panel will discuss issues such as: Whether and to what extent copyright law can accommodate AI-created works; Whether the EU approach to text and data mining will support the development of and investments in AI in Europe; Whether human authors will and/or should be replaced by machines; The preferable regulatory approach to be pursued in Europe and in the UK, also post-Brexit. If...

Four years is a long time in politics but not a particularly long time in the land of government reports. Just under four years ago the UK Intellectual Property Office commissioned research to address the lack of existing data on design infringement. The results of that research were published last week .  Designs are an important part of the UK economy. In 2015, the UK design economy was worth 6% of the nation’s total economy. It was therefore considered a worthwhile exercise to review the current designs regime and identify opportunities for improvement. The report includes some positive indicators about the design sector " there is some evidence that the design sector as a whole is thriving, and that the use of design improves the productivity of firms in other sectors ." It is less positive about the legal mechanisms which are designed to protect this: " there is still little knowledge based on reliable evidence about the effectiveness of the legal system to achieve ...

Should France [and any other colonial power] give back to Africa [or any other former colony] its cultural heritage? ‘Yes’ says the experts’ report delivered last week to President Emmanuel Macron, urging France to do so regarding Africa's cultural heritage ( here ).  In 2017, the French President commissioned a report to evaluate the possibility of making restitution regarding the African cultural heritage currently held by the collections and archives of French museums. A year later, heritage specialists Felwine Sarr and Bénédicte Savoy delivered a 252-page long report , outlining a five-year plan to return cultural heritage items to their respective places of origin.  Their proposed restitution policy is primarily concerned with the policies and conventions of conduct in place to trace the origin and rightful ownership of items, depending on the circumstances of their acquisition (sales, donation, looting and the like). At first glance, this discussion should have little to...

Copyright is not the simplest of intellectual property rights and when you add licensing to the mix the combination of contract and competition law plus cross border questions can provide complex considerations for even the most experienced practitioner. Cross-Border Copyright Licensing: Law and Practice , edited by Carlo Scollo Lavizzari and Rene Viljoen aims to guide you through some of these complexities, particularly as they relate to China, the EU, India, Mexico, Russia, Singapore, South Africa and the US. The book gives a handy and comprehensive overview of the legal issues to consider when licensing copyright in each territory. This includes the approach of the national courts to important questions such as jurisdiction and choice of law. More practical considerations such as collecting societies are considered as well as related rights such as image rights, moral rights and performers rights. In some cases, other rights such as patents get a special mention, particularly where ...

Copyright has nothing to do with art. Those who believe otherwise are romantic dreamers who overcomplicate this field of law. No doubt you will have heard or read this before. Perhaps you might even share this view. If so, Daniel McClean ’s latest edited collection, ' A rtist, Authorship & Legacy: A Reader’ , may be just what you need to nuance your point of view.  The ambiguity of copyright’s relationship with art, or art with copyright, is precisely what this book is about. McClean brings together twenty-two essays by different authors, who collectively examine both the overlaps and gaps between legal and artistic authorship, this against the backdrop of the day-to-day practice of commissioning, buying, exhibiting and curating artworks. The collection executes this task brilliantly by framing each chapter in relation to a particular event or dispute which took place in the open (in courts, museums or the press) or behind the semi-closed doors of the art world via ‘open secr...

The IPKat has had his portrait painted by the AmeriKat - raising another issue of non-human authorship/ownership In the AmeriKat's free time (which does, on occasion, exist), she takes her paw to some painting, being her medium of choice since kittenhood.   The paintbrush is dictated by the AmeriKat's paw which, in turn, is dictated by the spark of artistic expression and emotion lighting up the hemispheres of her brain.  Artistic expression which cannot be downloaded, decoded or analyzed in any complete way.  It is this artistic expression and the old image of the tortured, hungry and, often, poor artist, that historically fueled some of the philosophic underpinnings of some copyright systems  and, in particular, purportedly justified moral rights and duration extensions.  Over the last century, the subject matter of copyright has seen an expansion as the proliferation of information has created "new"  subject matter capable of protection with the jus...

Conference season is in full swing, and our friends at the ERA Academy of European Law wish to let The IPKat know about two events that come with a substantial discount for our readers. The first event is devoted to all things EU copyright: it is the Annual Conference on European Copyright Law 2018 , which is taking place in Trier (Germany) on 22 and 23 November 2018. The agenda looks juicy, with talks devoted to the Digital Single Market copyright reform , the definition and responsibility of online content-sharing service providers, online use of press publications, public interest and limits to copyright protection, human rights and copyright, key recent rulings from the CJEU (featuring Marko Ileši č , ie the judge rapporteur in both GS Media , C-160/15 and Ziggo , C-610/15), and data economy policy and copyright. The other good news is that IPKat readers enjoy a 25% discount on the registration fee. For further information and to register, click here and use the IPKat VIP code 201...

It's conference season also for Kats The IPKat is happy to remind readers about two forthcoming events, devoted to copyright law and to competition law in the pharma sector, respectively. If you are interested in copyright law and wish to discuss what has happened over the past few (eventful) months, then you may want to check details of the annual  International Copyright Law conference   that is taking place in London on 27 and 28 November 2018. The agenda of this event includes topics ranging from EU copyright and WIPO developments to Brexit and everything in-between. The other good news is that IPKat readers enjoy a 15% discount in the registration fee. Just  click here   to register and use the VIP code  FKW82865IPKE2 . IPKat readers enjoy at 15% discount also for another event, devoted to discussing competition law aspects in the pharmaceutical sector and taking place in Brussels on 4 December 2018. The agenda of Competition Law in the Pharmaceutical Secto...

As readers will know, over the past few years, Australia has considered or has introduced a number of changes to its copyright law. The latest news concerns online piracy and how to tackle copyright infringements occurred via the internet more effectively by means of enhanced website blocking orders.  Katfriend Fiona Philiips ( Fiona Phillips Law ) explains the background to and content of a bill that was introduced a few days ago. Here’s what Fiona writes: Australia has traditionally experienced relatively high levels of copyright infringement. In 2015, the Australian Government introduced site blocking as a remedy into the Australian  Copyright Act . The scheme enables rights holders to apply to the court to order service providers to block access to foreign websites which have the primary purpose of infringing (or facilitating infringement of) copyright. It is largely modeled on the successful site blocking regime in the UK. Since its introduction, the scheme has been used...

Are you under the romantic spell of copyright law, so much so that its mutation into an aggressive economic tool protective of investments rather than creative labour has escaped your attention? Or, much like Fiona Macmillan in Kritika, have you been staring at the “ugly underbelly” of this mutant-copyright for quite some time now?    Copyright is one of the many IP rights which, according to some has got out of hand (due to over-expansion across various dimensions) or is increasingly out of touch with reality (due to obsolescence). With the third volume of Kritica – Essays on Intellectual Property law , editors Haans Ullrich, Peter Drahos and Gustavo Ghidini, delivers an academic review of the IP system’s inadequacy. A tall order indeed. Taken together, the overarching conclusion reached by the contributors is that fixing copyright, or any other IP right, would require re-tuning the core concepts of both national and international IP laws. Each chapter of the collection engag...