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Category: Law review

SWD Impact assessment on the modernisation of EU copyright rules – the general objective

The Internet has favoured the entry of new market players and the development of new services (e.g. music streaming services, Video on Demand – VoD – platforms, etc.) providing access to a large quantity and variety of content online. Digital technologies also offer new opportunities to cultural heritage institutions (CHIs) willing to digitise and disseminate parts of their collections that would otherwise remain confined to their premises with limited access to the public.

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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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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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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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SGA’s public comment on collective rights management rules review

The four points on which SGA lends its full support to the PROs are: (1) the need to shift performance royalty rate-setting from rate court judges to private arbitrators; (2) the imperative for recognition of an evidentiary presumption that direct, arms-length licenses (the terms of which are fully disclosed) voluntarily negotiated by copyright holders who have withdrawn rights from a PRO provide the best evidence of reasonable market rates; (3) the related Congressional adoption of the “willing-buyer/willing seller” standard in rate setting for musical compositions, and; (4) the extension to PROs of the ability to license bundled rights beyond the singular right of public performance to new media services.

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The new program for Russian digital economy has been adopted

This program has been developed and adopted in order to implement new Strategy of development for informational society in Russia. This program is called “Digital economy of Russian Federation”. This program has its purposes. First of all it is intended to create ecosystem of Russian digital economy, where digital data should be the key factor of producing in all fields of social-economic activity.

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Draft third edition of USA copyright office compendium – copyright for ideas, methods, facts

A work that has not been fixed is not protected by the Copyright Act and cannot be registered with the U.S. Copyright Office, although it might be eligible for protection under state law. The Office will not register works produced by nature, animals, or plants.

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CISAC’s public comment on collective management rules review

The network of reciprocal representation agreements developed by CISAC and signed by its members ensures that author’s rights are protected and administered around the world and that each CMO is in a position to offer licensing solutions that cover broad repertoire. This system also ensures that royalties flow to authors wherever they are in the world.

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The Intellectual Property (Unjustified Threats) Act 2017 Business Guidance – Defences and Professional advisers

If the act which is the subject of a threat is shown to be an infringing act, or an intended act that (if carried out) would be infringing, the threat is justified. Justified threats of infringement are allowed. A person having made a threat may defend themselves in an unjustified threats action by showing that the threat was justified because infringement actually occurred or was intended.

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