International Agreement

An international agreement is a formal, legally binding agreement between two or more states, organizations or other parties. If the agreement is between two parties it is called a bilateral agreement. If more parties are involved, it is a multilateral agreement.

Authorship, Case Law, European Union, International Agreement, Originality, Subject matter (copyrightable)

(Institute for Information Law (IViR))/ /Leave a comment

Just seven weeks after the release of the AG’s Opinion the Kwantum v. Vitra case was decided by the European Court. For Dutch background and early criticism, see my earlier blog. The main question asked to the Court was whether a Member State may unilaterally apply the Berne Convention’s rule of material reciprocity (Article 2(7)…

Copyright, International Agreement, Subject matter (copyrightable)

, (Institute for Information Law (IViR)), (Humboldt University), and (University of Oslo)/ /Leave a comment

This blog post contains an edited version of the European Copyright Society’s Opinion on Case C-227/23, Kwantum Nederland and Kwantum België.   The Berne Convention underscores the national treatment of foreign authors, allowing Union states to protect designs through various means. Article 2(7) introduces a material reciprocity test, limiting copyright protection for works of applied…

Copyright, International Agreement, Legislative process

(Washington College of Law), (Knowledge Ecology International), and (Policybandwidth)/ /Leave a comment

WIPO negotiators appear prepared to approve a draft Broadcast Treaty that is no longer “signal-based” or limited to “traditional” (non-Internet-based) broadcasting.   There is a significant push at this week’s meetings of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights to approve a Diplomatic Conference on a Broadcasting Organizations Treaty…

Exceptions and Limitations, International Agreement

(University of Geneva)/ /Leave a comment

Context Copyright can be challenging for cultural institutions (or “GLAM“ for Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) when pursuing digitization and dissemination activities, as copyright governs whether a given work can be used and if so, how (as shown in recent studies for museums, archives or libraries). These challenges lead to a need to support legislative…

Authorship, CDSM Directive, Contract, Digital Single Market, European Union, France, International Agreement, United Kingdom, USA

(Potter Clarkson LLP and King's College London)/ /1 Comment

Professor of Literary and Artistic Property Law at the Columbia Law School Jane C. Ginsburg recently visited London, where she delivered her lecture in memory of a well-known legal scholar – Professor William (Bill) Rodolph Cornish. Described as “an intellectual property pioneer and modern legal historian”, his untimely death in January 2022 was a blow…

Exceptions and Limitations, International Agreement, Jurisdiction

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The 42nd session of the World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) took place from 9 to 13 May 2022 in Geneva. This was the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic started that most of the delegates were reunited in person. In 2020 and 2021, the Committee held hybrid…

International Agreement, Jurisdiction, Liability, New Zealand

(Victoria University of Wellington)/ /Leave a comment

In late 2020, the Supreme Court of New Zealand gave judgment on copyright aspects of the dispute on whether Kim Dotcom and other’s involved in the Megagroup businesses should be extradited from New Zealand to the United States because of criminal copyright infringement. This episode, in a case which has involved multiple legal contests, was…

Exceptions and Limitations, International Agreement

, (Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition)/ /Leave a comment

Introduction A few weeks ago, the “International Instrument on Permitted Uses in Copyright Law” (hereinafter, the Instrument) was published with open access. The Instrument is the outcome of an international academic initiative that brought together around twenty outstanding copyright experts from various countries around the world. The group of experts convened its first meeting in…

International Agreement, USA

(Schulich School of Law )/ /Leave a comment

The global intellectual property landscape has witnessed important changes in recent years. Most notably, the public interest dimension of intellectual property has emerged as a paramount concern. Though there seems to be a fairly broad agreement on the need for a more balanced intellectual property system which effectively promotes innovation, views diverge on how to…