Update on South African Copyright Reform: Fair Use Provision May Be Removed
In the latest report from the South Africa copyright amendment bill process (see below), the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee suggested that it may be taking its fair use proposal off the table.
In the past three versions of the bill, it has contained a proposal to adopt a hybrid open general exception for either “fair use” or “fair dealing.” That proposal was supported by many academic and civil society organizations, and by an expert submission of the Global Expert Network on Copyright User Rights. More.
U.S., Canadian and Mexican Law Professors, Academics and Policy Experts: NAFTA Must Include Fair Use, Safe Harbors
[PIJIP] Nov 7: Today, over seventy international copyright law experts called for NAFTA and other trade negotiators to support a set of balanced copyright principles. The experts urge trade negotiators to support policies like fair use, safe harbor provisions, and other exceptions and limitations that permit and encourage access to knowledge, flourishing creativity, and innovation. Signatories include preeminent intellectual property professors and experts from law schools, think tanks, and public interest organizations in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, as well as Argentina, Australia, China, Ireland, and Switzerland. More.
PIJIP Releases New Research on the Impact of Copyright Balance at the 35th WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights
Nov 14: Today, PIJIP released new research on the impact of copyright balance. The release was announced at the World Intellectual Property Organization Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights. The research finds that balanced copyright policies in other countries have had positive effects on net income, total sales, and value-added by foreign affiliates of U.S. firms. More generally, it finds that increases in PIJIP’s “openness score” are associated with higher revenues in the information sector, without harming traditional copyright-intensive industries. More.
The User Rights Database: Measuring the Impact of Copyright Balance
Nov 7: One reason for the lack of empirical research on the impact of more open and flexible user rights has been the absence of a tool to measure changes in this variable of the law. To promote additional and enhanced research into the impact of user rights, we created the User Rights Database. The User Rights Database is an open access repository of coded data showing how and when copyright user rights have changed over time in a representative sample of different countries. More.
