Category: Copyright

169 European academics warn against the press publishers’ right proposed by the EU Commission

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| Copyright

Copyright?DSMIn a statement published this morning, 169 academics working in a variety of fields from all over Europe give a final warning against the EU Commission’s ill-conceived plans for the introduction of a new intellectual property right in news.

Here are some extracts from the statement:

Statement from EU Academics on Proposed Press Publishers’ Right

We, the undersigned 169 scholars working in the fields of intellectual property, internet law, human rights law and journalism studies at universities all over Europe write to oppose the proposed press publishers’ right.

Article 11 of the proposal for a Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, as it currently stands following negotiations in the EU Council and Parliament, is a bad piece of legislation. … The proposal would likely impede the free flow of information that is of vital importance to democracy. This is because it would create very broad rights of ownership in news and other information. … This proliferation of different rights for established players would make it more expensive for other people to use news content. … The proposed right would provide no protection against ‘fake news’. … There is no sound economic case for the introduction of such a right.

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Digital resource lifespan, via xkcd; or why copyright law must permit digital deposit

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| Copyright, Digital deposit

xkcd 1909 Digital Resource Lifespan

The description for this picture provides:

I spent a long time thinking about how to design a system for long-term organization and storage of subject-specific informational resources without needing ongoing work from the experts who created them, only to realized I'd just reinvented libraries.

This picture is worth many thousand of my words:

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The copyright implications of a publicly curated online archive of Oireachtas debates

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| Copyright, Digital deposit

From a twitter thread by Philip Boucher-Hayes last week, I learned that Ken Foxe had reported in the Irish Mail on Sunday that nearly ten years of video footage of Oireachtas debates and hearings had been taken offline. A spokesperson for the Houses of the Oireachtas said that the videos were removed because they had little traffic and were in an obsolete format. However, after an outcry online, the footage was restored, though with limited functionality. To overcome first the takedown, and then the limitations, various concerned netizens – including, I understand, Gerard Cunningham, Emerald De Leeuw, Elaine Edwards, and Sterling Plisken – have begun work on a publicly curated online archive of Oireachtas debates and hearings.

This is not the first time that civil society has had to step up when public functions have stepped back (see the story of the demise and return of KildareStreet.com, with various backups here and here). So, I think that a publicly curated online archive of Oireachtas debates is a fantastic idea, and I hope it prospers. It also provides a context in which I can discuss an important issue relating to Oireachtas copyright and digital deposit.…

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Legal deposit of digital publications

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| Copyright, Digital deposit

Digital Deposit, via NLAThe Department of Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, on behalf of the National Library of Ireland, is currently undertaking “a consultation on the legal deposit of published digital material in the 21st century in the context of copyright legislation” (see here and here). In particular, the Department welcomes submissions in relation to three questions:

Question 1: Should the policy of collecting, preserving and making available the published output of the nation for the benefit of the public be extended to include all contemporary publication formats of Irish interest including online digital formats e.g.,.ie websites?

Answer: Yes.
I have already set out my views on this issue on this blog. The starting point is Section 198 of the Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000 (also here), which provides that publishers of books and other paper publications must deliver a copy of each book or publications published in the state to various copyright deposit libraries. Most countries worldwide have similar provisions, and they ensure the preservation and the availability of a nation’s published heritage. With the rise of digital publishing, it is increasingly being recognised that print deposit is incomplete, and that a comprehensive preservation of a nation’s published heritage requires that copyright deposit should extend to online publications as well.…

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The IUA (and THEA) should follow the lead of their Dutch and German counterparts in their negotiations with large publishers

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| Copyright, Universities

A little while ago, I argued on this blog that Irish competition and copyright law should be amended to enable open access to universities’ research. In particular, the Irish Universities Association (the IUA), the representative body of the universities which employ academics whose research is published by the large publishers should negotiate the terms on which their employees will transfer copyright in their research and content to the publishers. They could this, either on their own, or jointly with the Technological Higher Education Association (the THEA), the representative body for Institutes of Technology in Ireland. This co-ordination and collaboration could improve the terms offered by publishers both to individual academics when submitting their research for publication, and to institutions for subscriptions to research resources – and it could in particular pave the way to ensuring greater open access to research. Because such co-operation could amount to an anti-competitive agreement, decision or concerted practice in breach of section 4 of the Competition Act, 2002, I suggested in that post an amendment to that section. I now learn that similar joint-action has been taken in the Netherlands and Germany, and without such legislative cover.

The deal between the Association of Universities in the Netherlands and Elsevier (joint press release) was concluded at the end of November:

In unique deal, Elsevier agrees to make some papers by Dutch authors free

A standoff between Dutch universities and publishing giant Elsevier is finally over.

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Copyright reform and digital deposit

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| Copyright, Digital deposit

Digital PreservationI noted yesterday that publication of the Copyright and Related Rights (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2016 has come a few steps closer. From the perspective of education, the Bill will implement the Marrakesh Treaty to facilitate access to published works for persons who are print disabled, facilitate distance learning and access to education over the internet, extend copyright exceptions to promote non-commercial research, and affirm that libraries, archives and educational institutions may make copies of works in theirs collection for preservation and exhibition purposes. The Bill will also extend “the existing copyright deposit provisions relating to books to facilitate the creation of a Digital Deposit on a voluntary basis”. Other countries (such as the UK and most other EU countries, Australia, Canada and New Zealand) have extended legal copyright deposit to digital and online publications, but no-one is systematically capturing Ireland’s .ie web domain, and it is on that issue that I want to focus in this post.

The first question is: what is legal copyright deposit? It is the ubiquitous statutory obligation (in Ireland, pursuant to section 198 of the Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000 (also here) on publishers and distributors to deposit at least one copy of every print publication, free of charge, in designated (pdf) legal copyright deposit libraries.…

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Publication of the copyright reform Bill comes a few steps closer

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| Copyright

Santa plus harp and copyright symbolIn August, the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation announced that the Government had approved the drafting of a Copyright and Related Rights (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2016. No timetable was provided at that stage. Nor was one provided in the Government’s Autumn Legislative Programme which was published in September. That Programme simply said that the Bill had been referred to the Joint Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, but the Bill was not listed for pre-legislative scrutiny by the Committee. Now comes news that, following a briefing by officials of the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, the Committee decided that it would not undertake pre-legislative scrutiny of the Copyright Bill (see the Committee’s Work Programme (pdf) s3(c), p5; h/t @johnjcarroll). Whilst it is a pity that the Committee will not afford a first opportunity to point out some concerns with the Minister’s current approach, this does have the advantage of bringing the publication of the Bill itself a few steps closer. Perhaps it might not be too much to hope that copyright reform in Ireland might get a Christmas present this year?…

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Amending competition and copyright law to enable open access to universities’ research

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| Copyright, Universities

Book and racquet (element via flickr)1. Introduction
John Naughton began a classic column, on the world of university research being held to ransom by academic publishers charging exorbitant prices for subscriptions, by quoting Sir Patrick Cullen’s observation in George Bernard Shaw’s play The Doctor’s Dilemma that “All professions are conspiracies against the laity”. Then he continued:

To update the observation for a contemporary audience, simply replace the term “professions” with “publishers of academic journals” and you’ve got it in one. For, without the knowledge of the general public, a racket of monumental proportions has been milking the taxpayer for decades.

Most rackets can be prevented by good legal regulation. And a Bill that has just been given a very high chance of enactment demonstrates how that regulation might work. In this post, I want to explain the racket and the Bill, and then show how the legislative strategy in the Bill might provide a regulatory solution to the racket.

2. The Racket
Naughton explains the racket this way:

If you’re a researcher in any academic discipline, your reputation and career prospects are largely determined by your publications in journals of mind-bending specialisation … Everything that appears in such journals is peer-reviewed – that is to say, vetted by at least two experts in the field.

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