Friday fantasies

Refreshments are usually provided ...

Forthcoming events. As ever, the IPKat's Forthcoming Events page remains at your disposal. Do please feel free to take a look at the selection of conferences, forums, seminars, lectures, happenings etc which are organised for the benefit of the IP community, some of which are free to attend or make special provision for reduced-rate registration for readers of this weblog.  Among the events coming up soon are the IPKat's own seminar, shared with BLACA, on Sensory Copyright, which is coming up this Tuesday in London (details here).  Another of particular interest, coming up on 18 March at the University of Westminster, is the mock negotiation of the sale/purchase of a music publishing company (details here).

Over in the United States, the College Art Association (CAA) has just published its new Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts. The Code, says the CAA, is a set of principles addressing best practices in fair use for copyright-protected materials based on a consensus of opinion developed through discussions with visual-arts professionals.  Authored by Peter Jaszi and Patricia Aufderheide (professors of law and communication studies respectively at American University and the leading experts on the development of codes for communities that make use of copyright materials in their professional practices), the Code carries a couple of appendices which summarise fair use today and the methodology employed in determining the Code's content.  This very short work is short, sweet -- and aimed very much at American readers (not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's fair to say that not every country in the world has the same notion as what constitutes best practices for fair use).  You can read the Code for yourself online by clicking here.


Position advertised. Not everyone knows that MarkMonitor is a Thomson Reuters company, but this brand protection business is indeed one of the more switched-on horses in that massive stable of IP-related enterprises.  MarkMonitor is looking for a new brand protection analyst.  According to the job description:

The role of the Brand Protection Analyst (BPA) is to protect our global clientele from illegitimate activity on the Internet. Common abuses our clients face include: counterfeit goods, traffic diversion, misuse of trademark or copyright rights, and affiliate/channel partner compliance. The BPA works with international brand companies, using proprietary technology to detect and remove infringing content effectively and efficiently. This process includes analysis of large data sets, customization of workflow processes, proactive team collaboration, and generation of professional reports. 

If any reader of this blog is looking for gainful employment, this might be it.

Around the weblogs.  The posting of a reader's query about the current state of the dispute between the UK's Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) and the Design and Artists' Copyright Society (DACS) over payback royalties drew a full response from DACS but, disappointingly, no response as yet from CLA.  The SPC Blog reports the ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union in the Merck/Sigma "special mechanism" reference, a patent-related case that is so recondite that even most patent term extension niche-nerds avoid it. On Class 46, Katfriend Laetitia Lagarde explains how the word marks ANTISTAX and ANGIPAX are not apparently likely to be confused, even for identical goods, while Edith Van den Eede looks at a decision in which Italian Supreme Court had to deal with the capacity of English descriptive terms to distinguish goods in Italy.


Fixed users, escalating notices.  A media release, "Rights Holders and Internet Service Providers Publish Draft Code to Combat Online Copyright Infringement", has been drawn to this Kat's attention by Chris Torrero (katpat!). According to this release:

"A new draft industry Code of practice [34 pages in total, here] ... aims to drive down the rate of online copyright infringement, or “internet piracy” in Australia. The draft Code, published by Communications Alliance for public comment, is the product of an intensive development process by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and a broad alliance of Rights Holders from the music, film, television and performing arts industries.

Don't hesitate -- escalate?

The draft Code is scheduled to be submitted in final form to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) in April this year for registration – in line with the timeline requested by the Federal Government in December 2014. [It] creates a Copyright Notice Scheme through which residential fixed internet users who are alleged to have infringed copyright online will receive an escalating series of infringement notices designed to change their behaviour and steer them toward lawful sources of content.

The Scheme has a strong emphasis on public education and does not contain explicit sanctions against internet users, but does provide for a ‘facilitated preliminary discovery’ process through which ISPs can assist Rights Holders who may decide to take legal action against persistent infringers. The Scheme contains strong safeguards against any threat to the privacy of internet users and allows an account holder who receives three infringement notices in a 12 month period to have the validity of the allegations independently reviewed. Several key issues are still under discussion between Rights Holders, including elements of the funding arrangements for the Scheme and the volume of notices anticipated to be sent during the Scheme’s initial 18 months of operation. ..."

This Kat will be watching for further developments.