Latest Copyright World; The guru returns

Getting a little behind with his reading, the IPKat has only just got to the March 2007 issue of Copyright World, the colourful journal published by Informa. The cover story is a discussion by English solicitor Graham Simkin and US attorney Kevin Smith, both from Fulbright & Jaworski International, of some of the implications for love-it-or-hate-it digital rights management (DRM or nightmare?) of human rights law and competition law. Other topics covered include

* Gadi Oron (legal adviser, IFPI), giving a crisp, simple account of the ECJ's ruling in the Spanish reference in SGAE v Rafael Hoteles as to whether the provision of TV programmes to hotel rooms constituted an act of communication to the public for which royalties might be legitimately sought;

* "A Whiter Shade of Pale" by Best & Soames' Hubert Best, a commentary on the recent UK copyright litigation over authorship of the 1960s Procol Harum classic;

* "Brave New World", by Jeremy Miles and Dan Caunt (Field Fisher Waterhouse) on the potential legal liability of distributors of user-generated content (a coded term for YouTube and its emulators).

Contents of the current issue of Copyright World here


IPKat co-blogger Jeremy has just spotted this news item on the website of The Lawyer headed "Olswang bolsters tech team with ex-Slaughters TMT guru". The guru concerned is his old friend and former student Nigel Swycher, who left Slaughter and May a while ago after taking a year-long sabbatical on the West Coast with California litigation boutique Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Lloyd & Hedges LLP. Nigel is taking up a newly created role of Head of Technology at Olswang.

The IPKat wishes Nigel well in his new position.