The CopyKat

In the UK, and as the general election looms, there's not been much mention of copyright, but one party has come up with some new suggestions - the Green Party - but they may be forced to backtrack on proposals to limit UK copyright terms to 14 years after a "howl of protest" from prominent writers and artists including Linda Grant, Al Murray and Philip Pullman. The Greens’ manifesto said the party aims to “make copyright shorter in length, fair and flexible” but Kate Pool, deputy chief executive of the Society of Authors, told the Guardian that the change would be “appalling injustice” and that artists and writers would be first to lose out under the proposal, with more money being made by manufacturers or distributors.

Calling for US Congress to back an overhaul of licensing rules and a rewrite of the so called consent decrees that govern collective licensing in America, rapper Ne-yo has added some pithy common sense comments in the debate about royalties payable from streaming music services like Pandora and Spotify saying "Songwriters see the smallest fraction of royalty payouts because we are limited in how we can negotiate. Meanwhile, record labels and recording artists often earn twelve to fourteen times more than songwriters for a stream of the exact same song. As an artist who has experienced both sides of this split, I can personally speak to the nonsensical disparity between these different incomes".

Online music streaming service Grooveshark could potentially have to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to major record labels after a U.S. judge ruled ahead of its trial starting today (Monday) that Grooveshark's copyright violations on nearly 5,000 songs were "willful" and made "in bad faith." Last september U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa,  ruled that Grooveshark's parent company, Escape, and its founders, Samuel Tarantino and Joshua Greenberg, were liable for the illegal uploads of thousands of recordings by artists such as Madonna, Eminem, Bob Marley and Jay-Z. Judge Griesa said the defendants had directed their employees to make the uploads in spite of the legal risk and said that the site's takedown procedures ere not robust and failed to prevent uploaders repeatedly posting infringing material. The remaining matter is now the quantum of damages Escape Media must pay in penalties for the infringement in the action brought by nine record companies including Arista Music, Sony Music Entertainment, UMG Recordings, and Warner Bros Records in 2011. The maximum damages allowed under U.S. copyright law of $150,000 could potentially be awarded for each track infringed, and as Grooveshark has been accused of infringing nearly 5,000 tracks in the lawsuit - that's a massive $736 million (UMG Recording Inc et al v. Escape Media Group Inc et al).

In Russia, owners of 'pirate' sites have been given a final warning by the government. Augist 2013 amendments to the countries copyright law which will come into force May 1 not only protect more content than ever before, but also contain provisions to "permanently block sites that continually make unauthorized content available." Torrentfreak has more.

In NIgeria, the Nigerian Copyright Commission is proposing stringent new penalties for online infringement. The new Nigerian Copyright Act would, if passed into law, allow the NCC to cooperate with internet service providers to target infringing websites carrying illegal content. The NCC is also looking for a 2% levy on photocopiers, DVDs and mobile phones either manufactured locally or imported before the end of May, 2015. The levy is to compensate copyright owners but the NCC would retain a percentage to fund anti-piracy operations and promote creativity. Last year the NCC was involved in 202 anti piracy operations which resulted in 53 convictions. 

And China is clamping down on news webstes that harvest stories from other news providers.  WantChinaTimes reports that on April 22, the National Copyright Administration (NCA)  issued a set of new regulations governing news copyright, stipulating that if internet media outlets want to pick up any article from other sources, they should follow related regulations in China's Copyright Law. This means that these outlets should get advance permission from and make payment to the owner of the article reproduced and should clearly indicate the name of the author, as well as the title and source of the article.

Jean-Michel Jarre, songwriter, musician and now the President of CISAC, the global author rights collecting society body issued a statenent yesterday on World Intellectual Property Day in support of fair compensation for creators, saying  "Article 27(2) of the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations' General Assembly in 1948, states that, 'Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author'. These words are as valid now as they were 70 years ago" adding "Culture is what brings people together" and. "And is the expression of the cultural diversity that is so cherished by the United Nations and UNESCO. Access to culture is paramount to the elevation of mankind. It goes hand in hand with freedom of speech and freedom to create. Equally important in our eyes are the rights of creators. Without these moral and economic rights, creators would be deprived of ways to sustain a living and continue to create freely, and would also lose control over the use of their works" and "But for this to happen, creators need to be granted fair remuneration for the use of their creative works. In the music sector, we have launched the Fair Trade Music project to address this issue. In the visual arts sector, we are asking for an international treaty on the artist's resale right under the aegis of WIPO" concluding with "Sustainable creative eco-systems depend on the recognition that creative works bring value to so many businesses that would not exist without them. In return, what we, creators, are asking is simple: to be fairly compensated for the use of our works and to be protected for our rights. We are calling upon all the countries represented at the United Nations to endorse our pledge, and work with creators all around the world to ensure a better future for authors".

And finally, and importantly, over on the IPKat Eleonora reports on a recent decision from the German Federal Court (Bundesgerichtshof ) that says that public libraries may now digitise their physical collections and may make available to their users the digitized works through terminals located in the respective reading rooms. They may do so irrespectively of whether the publisher offers a digital version of the book or not. Further, the library users may not only read the digitized works, they may also print out parts thereof or save those parts to USB sticks. Such reproduction, however, must stay within the boundaries of private or academic use according to Sec. 53 UrhG. In return, the publishers are entitled to receive fair compensation. It's all here - and well worth a read.

The CopyKat - the paws, tails and whiskers of copylife

Canadian anti-piracy group Canipre is currently working on behalf of Voltage Pictures to obtain the identities of individuals said to have pirated that company’s movies in Canada.  As the process moves through the legal system, the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC)  had the opportunity to cross-examine Canipre chief Barry Logan. TorrentFreak report that  it was a bad-tempered encounter with CIPPIC attorney David  Fewer and James Zibarras, the attorney acting for Logan and Voltage, crossing swords with the latter instructing his client to refuse to answer Fewer's questions no less than 34 times on matters including the ownership structure on Canpire and how potential defendants were identified from an IP address. Seems trolling isn’t the simple process it used to be.

YouTube’s help Channel has launched a new  tool to help explain it’s copyright policy – a video featuring popular puppets Mario and Fafa - and with senior copyright counsel at Google Fred von Lohmann on hand to provide the legal advice. It's a whacky breeze and to be fair, tries to be even handed and explain the basics of YouTube's complaints and take down procedures.

Chinas’s National Copyright Administration, part of the General Administration of Press and Publication,  has said that it will add Apple's App Store, Taobao and Amazon to its copyright supervision plan in this year's campaign against online piracy. The platforms will be required to report on the measures they are taking to protect copyrights and handling complaints filed by content holders. The Administration currently supervises 19 major websites,  and Duan Yuping, copyright supervision officer, said that along with the Apple Store, Taobao and Amazon, video and music on five more websites will also now fall under the authority's supervision. From 2005 to 2012, the Administration says it has settled 4,051 copyright infringement cases and 1,725 websites have been shut down, with 1,041 servers seized and fines totalling 7.83 million yuan ($1.27 million) issued.  In addition, the Authority has transferred 229 cases to the criminal courts. 

The National Copyright Administration has also recently approved an international copyright trading centre in Qingdao development zone, China's first state-certificated exchange centre qualified for copyright authentication and transactions in global cultural and creative works. According to officials, it will significantly boost the development of local creative and cultural industries and promote the city as a regional "wisdom" centre

The new Russian anti-piracy Bill allowing for websites to be blocked by Internet service providers (ISPs has passed through its final two readings in Russia's State Duma.  The new provisions mean that failure to remove site content suspected of copyright infringement within 72 hours would result in the entire site being blocked by ISPs pending the outcome of a court hearing.

The World Intellectual Property Organization's Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works by Visually Impaired. Persons and Persons with Print Disabilities (the "Treaty for the Blind") has finally passed, after many years of hard work by copyright activists and activists for the rights of people with disabilities. The Motion Picture Association, the US film industry’s representative body, took a media bettering in the process for resisting some of the proposed innovations, with one website noting “To the shameless lobbyists at the MPA, remember: if you live long enough, the odds are good that you, yourself, will become print disabled.

I'm off to the world's greatest music festival now but MetDesk have just sent me this image of the weather ("feel free to use this image" - so I have - thank you very much!) - but what does that great big dark mess mean? Well Jeremy from MetDesk kindly headed up his email with "here comes the rain" and the Met Office have a similar view. By 6pm (may be earlier, this forecasting business is hard work) tonight it may be a tad dank. But what's Glastonbury without a little bit of rain ......... and we have the Arctic Monkeys, The Rolling Stones, Mumford & Sons, Chase & Status, Kenny Rogers, The xx, Portished, Phoenix, Jake Bugg, Bastille, Rita Ora, Dizzee Rascal,  Editors, Of Monsters And men, I Am Kloot, Alt J, Everything Everything, Primal Scream .... Sir Bruce Forsyth .... and hundreds and hundreds of other acts to look forward too! Hurrah!