Patent Protection for Drugs Puts Pressure on U.S. in Trade Talks; New York Times, 7/30/15

Jonathan Weisman, New York Times; Patent Protection for Drugs Puts Pressure on U.S. in Trade Talks:

"“The goal of the pharmaceutical industry is to change the rules internationally, to change global norms with a new monopoly that is cheaper for the companies and stronger,” said Judit Rius Sanjuan, a legal policy adviser for Doctors Without Borders’ medical access campaign, which wants lower-cost drugs on the market faster.

On the other side, Senator Orrin G. Hatch, the Utah Republican who is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, singled out the next generation of pharmaceuticals, called biologics, and warned on Wednesday that “a strong intellectual-property chapter — including strong patent and regulatory data protections for biologics — is vital to securing congressional support for this trade deal.”

The complexity of the pharmaceutical issues illustrates how difficult it will be to agree on broad trade rules for 12 countries, including giants like the United States and Japan and developing counties like Peru, Malaysia, Vietnam and tiny Brunei. United States negotiators are using novel arguments to secure positions. For instance, they are pushing to mandate open access to the Internet as an antipiracy measure, so Hollywood can use streaming videos to completely cut out the often-copied DVD."

Pitt library songbook key to lawsuit over ‘Happy Birthday’ rights; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 7/30/15

Luke Nozicka, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Pitt library songbook key to lawsuit over ‘Happy Birthday’ rights:

"The plaintiffs argued in a court filing this week that the copyright for the song expired when both versions of the song were published in the 1922 “Everyday Song Book.”...

On July 21, Mike Madison, faculty director of Pitt Law’s Innovation Practice Institute, received an email from Mr. Rifkin asking if a law student could send him copies of a 1916 version of the book located in Pitt’s Theodore M. Finney Music Library. But Jeanann Haas, head of Special Collections at University Library System, said no “Happy Birthday” lyrics were found in it.

However, the lyrics are in the 220-page 1927 version, a 12th edition, located at Hillman Library in Pitt’s Special Collections Department. Librarians there faxed a copied version of song 16 in the book published by The Cable Company in Chicago, titled “Good Morning and Birthday Song” to the attorney, which was used as evidence at the hearing Wednesday.

The attorneys said the Pitt songbook was the “smoking gun” evidence that would prove once and for all that the song is not copyrighted...

Regardless of how the judge rules, Mr. Silverman said it is almost funny how much attention Pitt is getting from this, considering all they really did “was copy a couple pages and fax them off.”

“We pull rabbits out of the hat day in and day out,” Mr. Silverman said. “We fax a couple pages to an attorney... and all of a sudden, the whole world is coming to our doorstep and saying, ‘Man, the librarians are really great.'"

Filmmakers fighting “Happy Birthday” copyright find their “smoking gun”; ArsTechnica.com, 7/27/15

Joe Mullin, ArsTechnica.com; Filmmakers fighting “Happy Birthday” copyright find their “smoking gun” :

"t's been two years since filmmakers making a documentary about the song "Happy Birthday" filed a lawsuit claiming that the song shouldn't be under copyright. Now, they have filed (PDF) what they say is "proverbial smoking-gun evidence" that should cause the judge to rule in their favor.

The "smoking gun" is a 1927 version of the "Happy Birthday" lyrics, predating Warner/Chappell's 1935 copyright by eight years. That 1927 songbook, along with other versions located through the plaintiffs' investigations, "conclusively prove that any copyright that may have existed for the song itself... expired decades ago."

Even if the owner wasn't first, "Copyright law requires originality, not novelty." If the filmmakers' lawyers are right, it could mean a quick route to victory in a lawsuit that's been both slow-moving and closely watched by copyright reform advocates. Warner/Chappell has built a licensing empire based on "Happy Birthday," which in 1996 was pulling in more than $2 million per year."

State Of Georgia Sues Carl Malamud For Copyright Infringement For Publishing The State's Own Laws; TechDirt.com, 7/24/15

Mike Masnick, TechDirt.com; State Of Georgia Sues Carl Malamud For Copyright Infringement For Publishing The State's Own Laws:

"Two years ago, we wrote about the state of Georgia ridiculously threatening to sue Carl Malamud and his site Public.Resource.org for copyright infringement... for publishing an official annotated copy of the state's laws. This followed on a similar threat from the state of Oregon, which wisely backed down. Malamud has spent the last few years of his life doing wonderful and important work trying to make sure that the laws that we live by are actually available to the public. The specific issue here is that while the basic Georgia legal code is available to the public, the state charges a lot of money for the "Official Code of Georgia Annotated." The distinction here is fairly important -- but it's worth noting that the courts will regularly rely on the annotations in the official code, which more or less makes them a part of the law itself. And then, the question is whether or not the law itself should be subject to copyright restrictions. Malamud has long argued no, while the state has obviously argued yes, probably blinded by the revenue from selling its official copy of the annotated code."

It took two years, but the state has now done the absolutely ridiculous thing of suing Malamud. It is about as ridiculous as you would expect again focusing on the highly questionable claim that the Official Code of Georgia Annotated is covered by federal copyright law -- and that not only was Malamud (*gasp*) distributing it, but also... creating derivative works! Oh no! And, he's such an evil person that he was encouraging others to do so as well!"

ALA president calls for digital transformation of Copyright Office; American Library Association (ALA) Press Release, 6/12/15

American Library Association (ALA) Press Release; ALA president calls for digital transformation of Copyright Office:

"Today, American Library Association (ALA) president Courtney Young responded to the introduction of the Copyright Office for the Digital Economy Act (CODE Act) by Representatives Judy Chu (D-CA) and Tom Marino (R-PA):

“For more than 20 years, content creators, rights holders, legislators and public users alike have acknowledged that the U.S. Copyright Office needs to modernize its technological capabilities for the 21st century. Unfortunately, the recently introduced Copyright Office for the Digital Economy Act does little to address significant technology challenges impacting the U.S. Copyright Office.

“The bill’s proposal to make the Copyright Office an independent agency does not address the longstanding problems facing the agency, specifically that the Copyright Office’s information technology systems are woefully inadequate in serving both rights holders and the public in the digital environment. Much of the Copyright Office's shortcomings were detailed in a Government Accountability Office report published in March 2015. Instead of independent authority, the Copyright Office needs resources—both in the form of funding and technical expertise—to bring it out of the typewriter age.

“Rights holders, authors, publishers, libraries and the general public nationwide rely on the robust U.S. Copyright registration and recordation system to identify the copyright status of works. Comprehensive and accurate records in digital systems that can communicate with other digital systems are necessary to handle any transaction—whether one is trying to register copyright in order to proceed with legal action or whether one is just trying to identify who holds the rights to a particular work. In addition, progress should be made immediately to build the necessary digital storage facilities for digitally-born works.

“We urge the U.S. Congress to support the investment necessary to transition the Copyright Office from a paper-based system to a digital system that uses the most effective digital technology, systems and software–to enable commerce, promote access to content, and to inspire the creators and artists of the future who wish to make use of the previous works. A successful overhaul of the Copyright Office’s information technology infrastructure cannot be achieved by securing the Copyright Office’s independence from the Library of Congress. We have a much more important problem to solve that cannot be fixed by changing the address of the Copyright Office.”"

The Copyright Office Belongs in a Library; Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), 7/23/15

Parker Higgins, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF); The Copyright Office Belongs in a Library:

"The ALA is correct. The way to solve the problems of the Copyright Office and the Librarian of Congress is not to separate the two. Rather, it's to dedicate resources better and push for more thoughtful leadership. On both counts, a smart choice for Librarian of Congress will help.

There are also historical reasons to leave it in place, dating back to the 1870 law that centralized key copyright functions in the Library. Most notably, the deposit requirement—that authors and artists submit copies of works they are registering for copyright—has provided enormous public value by building up the collection. Of course, the Copyright Office performs other functions. But operations like maintaining a catalog of registrations, providing technical assistance to legislators and executive branch agencies, and providing information services to the public are all better understood as being, on some level, library services.

So both ideologically and pragmatically speaking, any hasty moves to yank the Copyright Office out of the Library should be non-starters. The Copyright Office has an important role to play in protecting the public interest. It’s most likely to play that role if it answers to a Librarian."

TPP's Copyright Trap; Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), 7/22/15

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF); TPP's Copyright Trap:

"One of the defining battles in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations is whether its signatory countries will standardize copyright terms lengths to a minimum term of the life of the author plus 70 years. This would effectively set the maximum duration of copyright holders' monopoly rights to over 140 years. This is the demand from rightsholder groups such as the RIAA and MPAA who advise the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR). A precedent for such a provision has been set in previous Free Trade Agreements with countries like Australia and Singapore.

But the world's leading economists agree that such an extraordinary long copyright term makes no sense. It provides no further incentive for creation and provides little additional income to creators or their families—except for a very small, successful minority."