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Month: August 2017

Public comment on collective rights management rules review by National Association of Broadcasters

NAB members are both creators and users of copyrighted works and, as such, recognize the important need to balance the rights of copyright owners against the public interest. The blanket licensing of performance rights is inherently anti-competitive because the very nature of the PRO’s blanket license involves the fixing of a single price for all music, irrespective of which songs are actually used.

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The Russian president is concerned of widespread counterfeiting in light industry

The counterfeiting in light industry is of chronic nature, he stated at the meeting on development of light industry. This problem undermines competition in internal market and causes a great risk to health of citizens. In 2013 the share of counterfeit was about 39% or more than 1100 billion Roubles. Today the share of counterfeit is about 33% or 860 billion Roubles. The dynamics for three years is not “impressive”. The key factor for development of light industry is elimination of counterfeiting and illegal import in Russia.

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US Copyright Office on “full-work” licensing

The Office believes that an interpretation of the consent decrees that would require these PROs to engage in 100-percent licensing presents a host of legal and policy concerns. Such an approach would seemingly vitiate important principles of copyright law, interfere with creative collaborations among songwriters, negate private contracts, and impermissibly expand the reach of the consent decrees. It could also severely undermine the efficacy of ASCAP and BMI, which today are able to grant blanket licenses covering the vast majority of performances of musical works – a practice that is considered highly efficient by copyright owners and users alike.

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A consultation paper on options for reform to the copyright board of Canada

The Board is an administrative tribunal created by the Act that is empowered to establish, through tariffs or individual licences, the royalties to be paid in certain cases for the use of content that is subject to copyright. In almost all cases, the jurisdiction of the Board is limited to rights that are collectively managed by organizations referred to in Canada as collective societies.

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In near future Russia will develop its own “digital law”

Within next five years Russia must develop its own digital law, believes deputy of Russian minister of economic development Savva Shipov. “Actually we need to create new digital law. It is necessary to achieve all these goals within next five years. It is maximum term we have. Afterwards it will be impossible to take a chance,” – he said.

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The new law on VPN services in Russia

The Russian president has signed the law on VPN services operating in Russia. This law is intended to prohibit dissemination of information, or in other words – prohibit access in Russia to information, forbidden by Russian law, with help of VPN services. Such services allow the internet user to receive access to any web-site, or almost any web-site, if such access has been blocked by Russian telecommunication companies, providing access to internet in Russia, under court order or in accordance with law.

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It was proposed to register traditional Russian patterns as trademarks

Russian Association uniting participants of art-industry marketplace (AURA) and National union of folk art-craft (NSHP) have proposed to Russian ministry of trade (MinTorg) to register graphical elements, typical to Russian folk craft, as trademarks. These two professional organisations along with MinTorg consider and discuss opportunity to protect traditional Russian pattern in Russian marketplace.

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Draft third edition of USA copyright office compendium – Typeface and Mere Variations of Typographic Ornamentation and Mere Copies

The copyright law does not protect typeface or mere variations of typographic ornamentation or lettering. A typeface is a set of letters, numbers, or other symbolic characters with repeating design elements that are consistently applied in a notational system that is intended to be used in composing text or other combinations of characters. Typeface includes typefonts, letterforms, and the like.

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