Canadian Copyright: Bill C-32, An Act to Amend the Copyright Act

The Government of Canada has introduced Bill C-32, An Act to Amend the Copyright Act.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The Honourable Tony Clement, Minister of Industry, and the Honourable James Moore, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, today announced the introduction of legislation to modernize the Copyright Act. This legislation is a key pillar in the government's commitment in the 2010 Speech from the Throne to position Canada as a leader in the global digital economy.

"Our government promised to introduce legislation that will modernize Canadian copyright law for the digital age while protecting and creating jobs, promoting innovation and attracting new investment to Canada," said Minister Clement. "This legislation will ensure that Canada's copyright laws are forward-looking and responsive in a fast-paced digital world.". . .

The popularity of Web 2.0, social media, and new technologies such as the MP3 player and digital books have changed the way Canadians create and make use of copyrighted material. This bill recognizes the many new ways in which teachers, students, artists, software companies, consumers, families, copyright owners and many others use technology. It gives creators and copyright owners the tools to protect their work and grow their business models. It provides clearer rules that will enable all Canadians to fully participate in the digital economy, now and into the future.

This legislation will bring Canada in line with international standards and promote home-grown innovation and creativity. It is a fair, balanced, and common-sense approach, respecting both the rights of creators and the interests of consumers in a modern marketplace. The Government of Canada is working to secure Canada's place in the digital economy and to promote a more prosperous and competitive Canada.

For more information, visit www.balancedcopyright.gc.ca.

Read more about it at "The Canadian Copyright Bill: Flawed But Fixable," "Canadian Library Association Gives Passing Grade to New Copyright Legislation, and "Moore's Strong Rejection of Three Strikes Model for Canada."

"The Google Book Settlement and the TRIPS Agreement"

Daniel J. Gervais has self-archived "The Google Book Settlement and the TRIPS Agreement" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

The proposed amended settlement in the Google Book case has been the focus of numerous comments and critiques. This "perspective" reviews the compatibility of the proposed settlement with the TRIPS Agreement and relevant provisions of the Berne Convention that were incorporated into TRIPS, in particular the no-formality rule, the most-favored nation (MFN) clause, national treatment obligations, and the so-called three-step test, which constrains the ability of WTO Members to provide new exceptions and limitations to copyright rights.

WIPO: Scoping Study on Copyright and Related Rights and the Public Domain

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has released Scoping Study on Copyright and Related Rights and the Public Domain.

Here's an excerpt:

Protection of the public domain comprises two steps, as laid down by the [WIPO] Development Agenda: first, identifying the contours of the public domain, thereby helping to assess its value and realm, and, second, considering and promoting the conservation and accessibility of the public domain.

The present study will follow the same direction as it will first assess the scope of the public domain, as defined by copyright laws, history and philosophy, before turning to the issue of its effectiveness and greater availability to the public and society at large. This will lead to the formulation of some recommendations that, by viewing the public domain as material that should receive some positive status and protection, might help to support a robust public domain, as advocated by the Development Agenda.

Digital Video of Intellectual Property Breakfast Club Session on Google Book Settlement

BroadbandBreakfast.com has released a digital video of the Intellectual Property Breakfast Club's the Google Book Search Settlement and E-Book Licensing session on May 11, 2010.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The panelists included:

  • Jonathan Band, Counsel, Library Copyright Alliance
  • Michael Capobianco, Vice President, Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America
  • Sherwin Siy, Deputy Legal Director, Public Knowledge

Digital Information Management Podcasts/Videos from DigIn

The University of Arizona Digital Information Management (DigIn) certificate program has released a series of podcasts and videos about information management topics.

Here's the press release:

The University of Arizona Digital Information Management (DigIn) certificate program recently hosted a series of talks by members of the program's national advisory panel. The resulting podcasts offer an in-depth discussion of critical themes we explore regularly in the DigIn courses as we help information professionals meet the challenges we face in the digital environment today.

All podcasts are available at:

http://digin.arizona.edu/presentations.html

Friday, April 23, 2010
University of Arizona Main Library

"Career Paths for Information Professionals: Looking Ahead to 2020"

A panel discussion with members of the national advisory panel for the Digital Information Management (DigIn) graduate certificate program. This discussion examines the evolving role of the information professions today, and focuses on the skills and knowledge professionals need to build effective careers in a fast-changing environment.

Moderator:
Peter Botticelli
Director, DigIn program
http://digin.arizona.edu/

Panelists:
Charles Bailey, Jr.
Publisher, Digital Scholarship
http://www.digital-scholarship.org/

Richard Pearce-Moses
Past President, Society of American Archivists
Deputy Director for Technology and Information Resources,
Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records

Christine Szuter
Professor of Practice and Director
Scholarly Publishing certificate program,
Arizona State University

Pete Watters
Technology Officer
Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records

Friday, April 23, 2010 James E. Rogers College of Law

Roberta I. Shaffer Law Librarian of Congress

"Digitization and the Future of Law Libraries"

Legal Information is increasingly born digital and presents challenges of authenticity and preservation that are critical because of the role of legal authorities in establishing the "rule of law." This presentation by Roberta I. Shaffer, the Law Librarian of Congress, will discuss unique challenges that face law makers, law practitioners, and information professionals who are the stewards of our legal legacy. Ms. Shaffer will also discuss developments at the Library of Congress that are designed to address some of the concerns.

Friday, April 23, 2010 University of Arizona Main Library

Richard Pearce-Moses
Past President, Society of American Archivists
Director of Digital Government Information,
Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records
http://rpm.lib.az.us/

"Curating the Digital Past: Lessons from the PeDALS Project"

As the volume and complexity of digital information continues to grow, archivists and librarians have begun to develop the tools needed to preserve society’s legacy of digital records. This presentation by Richard Pearce-Moses will discuss the PeDALS project, a nationally-recognized digital preservation initiative funded by the Library of Congress, National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) as part of its Preserving State Government Information initiative. This initiative focuses on capturing, preserving, and providing access to a rich variety of state and local government digital information.

DigIn is part of the University of Arizona School of Information Resources and Library Science. Major funding for the program comes from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), which has also provided scholarship funding.

Additional details on the program, including course descriptions, admissions requirements and application forms may be found on the program website:

digin.arizona.edu

Applicants may also contact the DigIn staff at:

digin@email.arizona.edu

Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement: Impact on Individuals and Intermediaries

The Australian Digital Alliance has released Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement: Impact on Individuals and Intermediaries.

Here's an excerpt:

ACTA might have a negative impact on individuals as Internet citizens and as consumers of digital technologies because some of its requirements go beyond Australian law. ACTA will facilitate excessive damages payouts by mandating the controversial 'lost sale analysis' for the assessment of damages and encouraging punitive style statutory damages that set arbitrary amounts for infringement. ACTA will also broaden the scope of commercial scale infringement to criminalise purely private acts that occur in the homes of some Australians, and will create a new criminal offence for 'camcording'. ACTA may strengthen existing procedures to lock up copyright material and prevent Australians from accessing or using it in certain legitimate ways.

"Catching Up with the RIAA"

Walt Crawford has published "Catching Up with the RIAA" in Cites & Insights: Crawford at Large.

Here's an excerpt:

Briefly, Jammie Thomas was the defendant in the first case where an RIAA filesharing infringement suit actually went to a jury—despite RIAA's best efforts to avoid that happening. Thomas seemed like a sympathetic defendant: Single mother, Native American. But her IP address was attached to a KaZaA account offering more than 1,700 recordings with a user name she'd apparently used for years on several different accounts…and shortly after receiving a settlement letter from RIAA, Thomas had Best Buy replace the hard drive in her PC. And, under questioning, said it had been replaced a year earlier. To make a long story short—up to October 2007, at least—the jury found her guilty, not surprising given the evidence in the case. The judgment was for $220,000. She appealed the decision, in part based on a claimed flaw in the jury instructions. That's where things stood at the time of the earlier article.

Court activities can sometimes seem to be in very slow motion. Most of this article brings things up to date on the Thomas case—and, so you're not too surprised, it's not over yet. (There's other stuff about RIAA and copyright at the end of the article—but the Jammie Thomas saga is fascinating.)

Cynthia S. Arato's Analysis of the Google Books Settlement

Cynthia S. Arato, a Partner at Macht, Shapiro, Arato & Isserles, has sent an eighteen-page memo on the Google Books Settlement to the Open Book Alliance that summarizes "the objections and argument that we lodged against the proposed settlement of the 'Google Books' lawsuit on behalf of leading foreign publishing and authors' associations, foreign publishers, and foreign authors."

Here's an excerpt:

Numerous provisions of the proposed Google Books settlement would, if approved, violate the treaty obligations of the U.S. For this reason, and because of its myriad other defects, the settlement should not be approved by the court. If the settlement is approved, it may give rise to legal action against the U.S. before an international tribunal and will certainly expose the U.S. to diplomatic stress.

Copyright for Creativity—A Declaration for Europe

A coalition of organizations, including the European Bureau of Library, Information and Documentation Associations (EBLIDA), the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), the German Library Association (GLA), the Stichting LIBER Foundation (LIBER), the Special Libraries Association (SLA), and others, has released Copyright for Creativity—A Declaration for Europe.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Copyright is based on both protection of creative works and exceptions to that protection, which allow for businesses and creators to innovate, make creative reuses of content, and to build on the work of others. For example, copyright protects a novelist’s rights over her novel, while an exception recognising parody would allow another writer to create a new work of parody based on the original. While copyright protects an academic’s published research, exceptions allow for others to cite, copy in-part, and quote from that research. A balance is therefore struck between the need to protect creators’ rights, and the public benefit that can be realised through reuses, references, and other derivations of the work being created.

These exceptions are key to enabling legitimate reuses and innovation, and the activity of a number of socially and economically important stakeholders depends on them. While the public debate and political agenda around copyright focuses heavily on measures to protect ownership of creative works, the Copyright for Creativity declaration sets out a positive agenda by identifying a set of objectives that need to be achieved if copyright is to fully drive digital competitiveness, creativity and innovation.

Among its recommendations, the declaration calls for European copyright law to act as a spur to innovation, support education and research, facilitate digital preservation and archiving, and harmonise exceptions further across the EU. Also accompanying the declaration are clear examples of the shortcomings of the existing copyright regime; these examples illustrate the application of copyright exceptions in everyday life and their benefit to everyone.

Today’s declaration is only a start, as the coalition expects many more signatories to join after the launch. Given that Members of the European Parliament already support the declaration, the coalition also expects it to serve as a basis for a much needed debate on copyright and the way to ensure that it best serves the interest of creators, innovators and users alike.

Digital Video of Copyright, Content and Class Action Lawsuits: A Debate on the Google Book Search Settlement Meeting

The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation has released a digital video of its Copyright, Content and Class Action Lawsuits: A Debate on the Google Book Search Settlement meeting.

Participants included:

  • Daniel Castro, Senior Analyst, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
  • Allan Adler, Vice President of Government Affairs, Association of American Publishers,
  • Peter Brantley, Director of Access, Internet Archive
  • Dan Clancy, Engineering Director, Google Book Search
  • Alan Inouye, Director, Office for Information Policy, American Library Association

Library Copyright Alliance and Others Release "Concerns with April 2010 ACTA Text"

The Library Copyright Alliance and other organizations have released "Concerns with April 2010 ACTA Text."

Here's an excerpt:

The proposed statutory damages language in Article 2.2.2 differs from section 504(c) [of the U.S. Copyright Act] in several critical respects. First, section 504(c)(2) directs the court to reduce statutory damages in cases of innocent infringement. If the court finds that the infringer was not aware and had no reason to believe that its acts constituted infringement, the court can reduce the award to $200. And the court can remit statutory damages altogether if a library, archives, or educational institution believed that its copying was a fair use. In contrast, Article 2.2.2 make no provision whatsoever for innocent infringement. By mandating statutory damages without relief for innocent infringement, ACTA could subject U.S. entities to significantly greater damages overseas than in the U.S., thereby discouraging international expansion.

Official ACTA Draft Text to Be Made Public on April 21st

The Office of the United States Trade Representative has announced that the draft text of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) will be made public on 4/21/10.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The 8th round of negotiations on the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) was held in Wellington, New Zealand from 12-16 April 2010, hosted by New Zealand. Participants were welcomed by New Zealand's Minister of Trade Hon Tim Groser at a function attended by a wide range of stakeholders with an interest in the ACTA negotiations.

Participants in the negotiations included Australia, Canada, the European Union, represented by the European Commission, the EU Presidency (Spain) and EU Member States, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland and the United States of America. . . .

Overall, therefore, there was a general sense from this session that negotiations have now advanced to a point where making a draft text available to the public will help the process of reaching a final agreement. For that reason, and based on the specific momentum coming out of this meeting, participants have reached unanimous agreement that the time is right for making available to the public the consolidated text coming out of these discussions, which will reflect the substantial progress made at this round.

It is intended to release this on Wednesday 21 April.

In agreeing to release publicly this draft text in the particular circumstances of this negotiation, participants reaffirmed the importance of maintaining the confidentiality of their respective positions in trade negotiations.

ACTA will not interfere with a signatory's ability to respect its citizens' fundamental rights and liberties, and will be consistent with the WTO Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement) and will respect the Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health.

There is no proposal to oblige ACTA participants to require border authorities to search travellers' baggage or their personal electronic devices for infringing materials. In addition, ACTA will not address the cross-border transit of legitimate generic medicines.

While the participants recognise the importance of responding effectively to the challenge of Internet piracy, they confirmed that no participant is proposing to require governments to mandate a "graduated response" or "three strikes" approach to copyright infringement on the Internet.

Lawrence Lessig: "Getting Our Values around Copyright Right"

Lawrence Lessig has published "Getting Our Values around Copyright Right" in the latest issue of EDUCAUSE Review.

Here's an excerpt:

The existing system of copyright cannot work in the digital age. Either we will force our kids to stop creating, or they will force on us a revolution. Both options, in my view, are not acceptable. There is a growing copyright abolitionist movement—people who believe that copyright was a good idea for a time long gone and that we need to eliminate it and move on in a world where there is no copyright. I am against abolitionism. I believe copyright is an essential part of the cultural industries and will be essential in the digital age—even though I also believe it needs to be radically changed in all sorts of important ways and doesn't apply the same in science and in education. Copyright is essential to a diverse and rich (in all senses of that word) culture.

Europeana Publishes Public Domain Charter

The Europeana Foundation, the governing body of the Europeana service, has published its Public Domain Charter. The Europeana beta currently links users to around 6 million digital objects. About 10 million digital objects are expected to be available this year, when version 1.0 becomes operational.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Today Europeana officially publishes the Public Domain Charter. It takes a strong position in support of the Public Domain, saying that:

Europeana belongs to the public and must represent the public interest. The Public Domain is the material from which society creates cultural understanding and knowledge. Having a thriving Public Domain is essential to economic and social well-being. Digitisation of Public Domain content does not create new rights over it. Works that are in the Public Domain in analogue form continue to be in the Public Domain once they have been digitised. . . .

The Charter is published by the Europeana Foundation, our governing body (now completing its name change from the EDL Foundation). The Charter is a policy statement, not a contract. It doesn't bind any of Europeana's content providers. It recognises the dilemma in which heritage institutions find themselves. Our partners' drive to digitise and make Public Domain content accessible is tempered by a recognition of the costs involved, and the need to arrive at the most appropriate agreements with those who are willing and able to fund digitisation programmes—including the private sector.

We are developing plans to label the rights associated with a digitised item very clearly so that they are understood by Europeana's users, who will be able to exclude content from their results that requires payment or doesn't comply with the Public Domain Charter. Rights labelling will become a requirement when submitting content to Europeana by the end of this year.

While Public-Private Partnerships are an important means of getting content digitised, the Charter recommends that deals are non-exclusive, for very limited time periods, and don't take material out of the Public Domain.

American Society of Media Photographers and Others File Copyright Infringement Suit against Google

The American Society of Media Photographers, the Graphic Artists Guild, the Picture Archive Council of America, the North American Nature Photography Association, Professional Photographers of America, and others have filed a copyright infringement suit against Google in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The suit, which was filed by Mishcon de Reya New York LLP, relates to Google’s illegal scanning of millions of books and other publications containing copyrighted images and displaying them to the public without regard to the rights of the visual creators. ASMP and the other trade associations, representing thousands of members, decided to file the class action after the Court denied their request to join the currently pending $125 million class action that had previously been filed primarily on behalf of text authors in connection with the Google Library Project. The new class action goes beyond Google’s Library Project, and includes Google’s other systematic and pervasive infringements of the rights of photographers, illustrators and other visual artists.

This action by ASMP and its sister organizations was taken in order to protect the interests of owners of copyrights in visual works from the massive and organized copying and public display of their images without regard to their contributions and rights to fair compensation. According to ASMP Executive Director Eugene Mopsik, "Through this suit, we are fulfilling the missions of our organizations and standing up for the rights of photographers and other visual artists who have been excluded from the process up to now. We strongly believe that our members and those of other organizations, whose livelihoods are significantly and negatively impacted, deserve to have representation in this landmark issue." ASMP General Counsel Victor Perlman said, "We are seeking justice and fair compensation for visual artists whose work appears in the twelve million books and other publications Google has illegally scanned to date. In doing so, we are giving voice to thousands of disenfranchised creators of visual artworks whose rights we hope to enforce through this class action."

Read more about it at "Artists and Photographers Sue over Google Book Search" and "Google a 'Brazen' Content Thief, Lawsuit Claims."

Clipping Our Own Wings Copyright and Creativity in Communication Research

The Center for Social Media at American University has released Clipping Our Own Wings Copyright and Creativity in Communication Research.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

A survey of communication scholars' practices, conducted by the Ad Hoc Committee on Fair Use and Academic Freedom in the International Communication Association (ICA), reveals that copyright ignorance and misunderstanding hamper distribution of finished work, derail work in progress, and most seriously, lead communication researchers simply to avoid certain kinds of research altogether.

Nearly half the respondents express a lack of confidence about their copyright knowledge in relation to their research. Nearly a third avoided research subjects or questions and a full fifth abandoned research already under way because of copyright concerns. In addition, many ICA members have faced resistance from publishers, editors, and university administrators when seeking to include copyrighted works in their research. Scholars are sometimes forced to seek copyright holders' permission to discuss or criticize copyrighted works. Such permission seeking puts copyright holders in a position to exercise veto power over the publication of research, especially research that deals with contemporary or popular media.

"Free Speech Unmoored in Copyright's Safe Harbor: Chilling Effects of the DMCA on the First Amendment"

Wendy Seltzer has self-archived "Free Speech Unmoored in Copyright's Safe Harbor: Chilling Effects of the DMCA on the First Amendment" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

Each week, more blog posts are redacted, more videos deleted, and more web pages removed from Internet search results based on private claims of copyright infringement. Under the safe harbors of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), Internet service providers are encouraged to respond to copyright complaints with content takedowns, assuring their immunity from liability while diminishing the rights of their subscribers and users. Paradoxically, the law's shield for service providers becomes a sword against the public who depend upon these providers as platforms for speech. . . .

Part I surveys the legal, economic, and architectural sources of the DMCA's chilling effects on speech. Part II then examines the First Amendment doctrines that should guide lawmaking, with critique of copyright's place in speech law. Part III reviews the history and mechanics of the DMCA and provides examples of chilled speech and a few instances of limited warming. Finally, Part IV engages current policy debates and proposes reform to protect online speech better.

ACRL, ALA, ARL, and Others Send U.S. Trade Representative Letter about ACTA

ACRL, ALA, ARL, and other organizations have sent a letter about the secret ACTA negotiations to U.S. Trade Representative Ambassador Ron Kirk.

Here's an excerpt:

This recent leak of a full [ACTA] text heightens our concern that this negotiation is not primarily about counterfeiting or piracy; nor is at all about trade law. The public rationale that the treaty would not impinge on domestic law has been placed in doubt—particularly when one considers whose domestic law would be endangered. As Google executives have recently experienced, it is not only U.S. domestic law that has consequences for U.S. technologists and service providers. Similarly, domestic interests in other participating countries should consider themselves at risk from provisions that are novel or antithetical to their national law.

The leaked text reveals detailed substantive attention to core principles of any nation’s intellectual property law:

  • Whether copyright plaintiffs may or shall have the option of receiving pre-established damage awards that have little or no relation to any harm that has been suffered.
  • The extent to which principles of inducement, newly introduced by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Grokster case, are to be accepted as supporting a separate basis for copyright liability or are a gloss on existing principles of contributory and vicarious infringement. This is not yet clear even in the United States.
  • The export of secondary liability principles to ACTA countries without simultaneously including the limitations and exceptions contained both in U.S. statutory law (e.g., fair use) and in the significant court decisions limiting secondary liability (e.g., Sony).
  • How technological measure anti-circumvention provisions are to be interpreted and applied, whether they will apply to access to works, whether they are to be limited to circumventions for infringing purposes, and whether account will be taken of the variations in national law, practice, and context, such as U.S. adherence to fair use and the imposition of levies under other national law.
  • The extent to which a "three strikes" approach and express or implied "filtering" mandates are to be imposed on ISPs.

U.S. negotiators have assured the Congress and the public that they cannot and will not agree to any provision that is contrary to domestic law. Other national negotiators have likely given similar assurances at home, publicly or privately. Hence the annotated documents appear rife with linguistic tugs and footnotes. To the extent compromise is achieved through ambiguity, no national of any participant nation will have assurance that domestic law will not be affected.

The time for public discussion as to exactly what this document will and won’t do is now.

ACRL, ALA, ARL, and Others Respond to U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator's Request

ACRL, ALA, ARL, and other organizations have responded to the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator's "Coordination and Strategic Planning of the Federal Effort against Intellectual Property Infringement: Request of the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator for Public Comments Regarding the Joint Strategic Plan."

Here's an excerpt from the ALA, ACRL, and ARL letter:

ARL, ALA, and ACRL believe it is very important that the IPEC has asked that assertions about the costs of intellectual property infringement clearly identify the methodology used and any critical assumptions relied upon to calculate those costs, as well as a copy or citation to the source of any data. As the comments of CCIA and the NetCoalition make clear, industry-commissioned studies rarely, if ever, rise to a level of rigor that justifies emergency intervention along the lines that content industries routinely demand. Rather, they are shot through with fallacies and sleights of hand that have done more to confuse and confound this discussion than to contribute to it. We refer you to the comments of CCIA and the NetCoalition for a detailed discussion of the problems with these studies and the arguments that are made in connection with them.

The fundamental flaw of these studies is that they beg the question of whether a particular private business interest is entitled to government protection for perpetual, stable profits regardless of changing business conditions. The mere fact of declining profits in one business model does not constitute a cognizable harm that government must step in to remedy. Government intervention in any area has costs for taxpayers, and in this area there are added costs to the public when IP policy becomes further slanted in favor of rightsholders and against public access and use.

Here's an excerpt from the American Association of Law Libraries, EFF, Medical Library Association, Public Knowledge, Special Libraries Association, and U.S. PRIG letter:

Thus, when determining enforcement priorities, the government should be guided by three principles. First, it should only seek to prevent private economic harms when the costs of enforcement do not exceed the harm caused. Second, it should pursue harms that meet the standards for criminal conduct. When society marks certain conduct as criminal, it authorizes public enforcement, recognizes that deterrent (as opposed to merely remedial) actions are more appropriate, and allows that in an individual case the cost of punishing the violation may outweigh the economic harm of the violation itself because of the moral wrong committed. Third, publicly funded enforcement resources should be reserved for clear violations of the law, rather than in "gray areas" characterized by uncertain and evolving legal or marketplace norms. The government should spend public funds on enforcement only when all three of these principles are met.

Read more about it at "ALA Calls for Openness in Copyright Negotiations and Enforcement Efforts," "Groups Ask Targeted Enforcement for Intellectual Property," and "Public Interest Groups Call on IP Czar to Get the Priorities Straight."

Consolidated ACTA Draft Leaked

A consolidated draft of ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) has been leaked.

Here's an excerpt from "The Consolidated Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement Leaks":

Although this is not the most updated version, when combined with the earlier leaked table on the Internet and civil enforcement chapters (which include changes from the January Mexico meeting), the complete current ACTA text is now publicly available.

Here's a brief description of ACTA from Public Knowledge:

ACTA is the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement being negotiated by the US, the EU, Japan, South Korea, Canada, Mexico, Australia, and New Zealand. The stated goal of the agreement is the international enforcement of strong intellectual property rights through increased cooperation and coordination among international governmental agencies.

Read more about it at "Complete ACTA Text Finally Leaked" and "Full ACTA Draft Leaked. . . EU Wants Injunctions against the Possibility You Might Infringe."

"Copyright Provisions in Law Journal Publication Agreements"

Benjamin J. Keele has self-archived "Copyright Provisions in Law Journal Publication Agreements" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

This study examined copyright provisions of law journal publication agreements and found that a minority of journals ask authors to transfer copyright. Most journals also permit authors to self-archive articles. It recommends journals make their agreements publicly available and use licenses instead of copyright transfers.

Berkman Center and eIFL.net Launch "Copyright for Librarians"

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society and eIFL.net have launched "Copyright for Librarians."

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

"Copyright for Librarians" aims to inform librarians about copyright law in general, as well as the aspects of copyright law that most affect libraries, especially those in developing and transition countries.

"Copyright law directly affects library services providing access to learning resources, scientific and research information," said Rima Kupryte, Director eIFL.net. "Everyday librarians are managing information and responding to requests from students, academics, and members of the public. They are well placed to provide practical advice on topical copyright-related issues. This curriculum, which includes modules on the scope of copyright law, exceptions and limitations and managing rights, provides librarians from around the world with an opportunity to understand this important area of law."

"Librarians and their professional organisations play key roles in shaping national and international copyright policy and in protecting and promoting access to knowledge," said William Fisher, faculty director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, "eIFL.net has created a crucial network of librarians in developing and transition countries. It is essential that the members of that network have the fullest possible understanding, not just of the current copyright laws, but also of the ways in which those laws could and should be interpreted and modified in the future. We hope that this curriculum will help to advance that understanding." . . .

The course materials of "Copyright for Librarians"—nine modules organised into five different levels—can be used as the basis for a self-taught course, a traditional classroom-based course, or as a distance-learning course.

"An Introduction to Competition Concerns in the Google Books Settlement"

Rudolph J. R. Peritz and Marc Miller have self archived "An Introduction to Competition Concerns in the Google Books Settlement" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

Google started its Google Books project in 2004 with the intent to create a digital library of the world’s books. There has not been such a grand plan since students of Aristotle began to gather the world’s knowledge in the Library of Alexandria some 24 centuries ago. The world’s knowledge has changed. And so has its political economy. Twenty-first century public policy questions have been interjected to delay and reshape Google’s project, questions that did not concern the royal sponsors of the ancient Library. This review takes up questions of competition policy raised in the United States, the corporate site for Google’s virtual Library of Alexandria.

After presenting the factual background to the Google Books project and the procedural history of the current class-action lawsuit, we examine two clusters of competition issues concerning the Google Books project: First, whether a class action settlement in litigation between private parties is an appropriate vehicle for making public policy. Second, whether Google’s actions are on balance anticompetitive under U.S. antitrust laws. Antitrust concerns will be given the lion’s share of attention.