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Month: August 2019

Third edition of USA copyright office compendium – copyright registration issues for dramatic works

A “joint work” is “a work prepared by two or more authors with the intention that their contributions be merged into inseparable or interdependent parts of a unitary whole.” Scripts for stage and screen are often written by multiple authors. If the authors of the script intend to merge their contributions into inseparable or interdependent parts of a unitary whole, the script is a joint work, and the applicant should name all the joint authors in the application.

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Russian state duma intends to teach Yandex aggregating news

It is well known that some occurrences can be very prominent and trigger a lot of public attention. Newspapers have a little time to write news and to publish them in order to attract people to their web-sites in order to get traffic, sell ads etc. Even this note is an indirect consequence of such prominent occurrence, but relax it is published without intention to sell ads. So for the convenience of internet users there are providers who aggregate news by the certain topic, theme or any other category.

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Russian IP court: there is no copyright infringement without IP object

The Russian accredited collecting society (CMO) collecting royalties for copyright in musical works has sued Russian cinema holding, seeking royalties for synchronization right. RAO has proposed cinema holding to conclude agreement for synch right, but the cinema has refused. Therefore RAO has filed suit. In the suit CMO has placed the list of audiovisual works and one author to each relevant AV work.

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Camcording can be punishable in Russia

The Russian ministry of culture (MinCult) has drafted the law providing amendments to the Russian administrative code. These amendments made camcording punishable and provide liability therefore. The aim of the draft law is to eliminate the main resource of piracy – the camcording. Many believe the pirates get movie releases only from cinemas because very often the right holders find in internet the leaked movies of cam quality.

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There is no copyright infringement in similarity caused by nature

GAME Duck

In 1988, Eric Schechter started GAME. At the time, GAME was focused on conducting fundraising activities. The fundraising concept was for individuals to “adopt” a small toy duck and then all the ducks would “race” on a waterway, such as the Salt River Canal or in New York Harbor. The person who had adopted the duck that finished first would win “a new car or prizes,” which had been donated. The sponsoring organization would then retain all the “adoption” fees.

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Russian enforcement authorities explained what is insulting of authority

The Russian ministry of internal affairs (MIA) has drafted special paper, some king of clear explanation, describing what is insulting of state authority bodies or institutions. But the most important thing is that this paper or, if more officially, methodical recommendations, are not of obligatory nature. In other words recommendations only “recommend” and authorities can apply the new law on punishment for insulting of authorities at their own discretion.

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Roskomnadzor’s reciprocal mass media regulation in Russia

Russian internet watchdog Roskomnadzor (RKN) has decided to transpose the British approach to mass media regulation into Russia. Such decision has been made on reciprocal principle. The new supposed regulation is to be applied only to foreign mass media; the Russian mass media should be regulated as usual. UK regulator Ofcom has imposed on Russia Today because it believes RT has violated the principle of objectivity.

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First challenging of theatrical distribution of movies in constitutional court

Russian movie theatrical distributor has filed complaint to Russian constitutional court in order to challenge the rules for theatrical distribution. The distributor believes these rules are of censorship nature. The complaint states on violation of freedom and rights by the actions of Russian ministry of culture (MinCult). MinCult has the rights to shift release dates almost of any film in Russia or repeal the permission for theatrical distribution at all.

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