by Kevin Coates | Oct 5, 2013 | News from around the Web
From Antitrust & Competition Policy Blog: FRAND in China “D. Daniel Sokol (Florida) and Wentong Zheng (Florida) have posted FRAND in China. ABSTRACT: This Essay discusses antitrust-related FRAND issues in China. In Part I, the Essay provides an overview of China’s antitrust regime and its interaction with intellectual...
by Kevin Coates | Oct 3, 2013 | News from around the Web
From Regulation Watch Feed: The changing role of collecting societies in the internet “ Collecting societies currently face major challenges stemming from: the reconfiguration of existing and emergence of new powerful players in the field of music distribution; the necessity of cross-territorial licensing options, and; the fragmentation of copyrights. This article presents an overview of recent technical and policy developments in this area in Europe and, on a more abstract level, it discusses structural problems underlying the policy conflicts. Collecting societies became indispensable intermediaries in the copyright system of the 20th century. Their core task was the collection of high-volume, low-value royalties stemming from secondary uses (e.g., broadcasting, public performance, lending) of creative works. Collecting societies are the solution to the problems that the individual creator – provided she/he is not among the small group of famous, top-selling artists – is confronted with, such as a weak bargaining position vis-à-vis broadcasters or online music platforms, and the fact that transaction costs for collecting small royalties from many users of her/his work (e.g., bars, clubs, discotheques) are generally too high (Mazziotti et al. 2009: 17 ff). In the field of music, the system of national collecting societies with monopolistic or quasi monopolistic positions always had its shortcomings. They are usually privileging top-selling artists and are not well suited to accommodate non-commercial music production and venues. But they provided a relatively stable and reliable framework for licensing musical works. As a result of the growing importance of the internet for the distribution and sale of music, this system of national collective rights management societies currently faces major challenges. The internet introduces...
by Kevin Coates | Oct 3, 2013 | News from around the Web
From Net neutrality in Europe: Net neutrality research and analysis: new paper “”
by Kevin Coates | Sep 24, 2013 | News from around the Web
From Regulation Watch – Feed of all News articles: Europe pushes rewind button on net neutrality “ The fight around net neutrality is far from over. In fact EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes’ recent presentation of her version of “net neutrality” in a draft regulation on a “connected continent“ resulted in an outcry on behalf of digital rights organisations. If passed unchanged, the new legal instrument would explicitly allow for deals between content providers and network operators about preferential treatment. Will countries like the Netherlands or Slovenia have to turn back the wheels on their strict net neutrality laws? The Council started talks on the regulation on September 20, according to the Council spokesperson for telecommunication, Paivikki Ala-Honkola. EU regulation Regulations are powerful instruments in the EU. They take immediate effect in all member states – as opposed to directives, which first have to be transposed into national laws allowing for considerable differences across the EU. Source: Wikipedia. There are a lot of provisions on transparency for bandwidth and speed in Kroes’ new draft regulation. Users would, with the help of regulators, be better off when it comes to monitoring the quality of their access network. Still, digital rights organisations and experts in net neutrality were not appeased. Freedom for everybody Although article 23 of the draft legislation focuses on the “freedom to provide and avail of open internet access, and reasonable traffic management,” it includes a clause that clears the way for preferential treatment of packets: for special offers to end users “providers of content, applications and services and providers of electronic communications to the public shall be free...
by Kevin Coates | Sep 24, 2013 | News from around the Web
From Truth on the Market: Some historical observations about Network Neutrality “I have a new post up at TechPolicyDaily that takes a historical perspective on Network Neutrality. The abstract is below. I had to cut a bunch out of the piece — I hope to add a bunch of the cut parts back in and post an extended version here later this week. But for now: Network...
by Kevin Coates | Sep 24, 2013 | News from around the Web
From CPI RSS: US: After two decades, Windows 95 antitrust suit nears end “ A US appeals court has sided with Microsoft in a two decade-long antitrust lawsuit launched by Novell Inc. over the company’s Windows 95 operating system, signifying a potential end to the feud. The 10th US Circuit Court of Appeals issued the decision Monday upholding a lower court’s ruling that tossed the claims against Microsoft. Novell accuses Microsoft of making last-minute changes to Windows 95 before its release that forced Novell to postpone the release of its WordPerfect program. According to the complaint, those last-minute changes cost Novell a major share of the market. A mistrial had been declared after a two month hearing in 2011 after one juror refused to abandon his support of Microsoft. The 10th Circuit issued a 35-page ruling agreeing siding with US District Court Judge J. Frederick Motz, who declared the mistrial and approved Microsoft’s motion that the company was legally entitled to win the lawsuit. Full Content: The Salt Lake Tribune Want more news? Subscribe to CPI’s free daily newsletter for more headlines and updates on antitrust developments around the world. ...
by Kevin Coates | Sep 21, 2013 | News from around the Web
From Regulation Watch Feed: User-generated content in a legal vacuum “ The mid-term review of the European Commission’s Licences for Europe1 stakeholder dialogue has presented three proposals on how to deal with user-generated content (UGC) in future copyright. The proposals developed by a dedicated Working group – which meets for the fifth time in Brussels today – are rather scant: more transparency on what users are authorised to do on platforms, easy to use tools to attach metadata and ID to content files and more awareness-raising of the legal environment. These do not look like a breakthrough. At the same time, there is already much more content created aside the classical “rightholders / copyright system” by creator-users. Beware, copyright reform might come too late. User-generated content “Creativity needs protection and protection needs copyright,” has so far has been the mantra of rightholders, more often big distributors than original creators in fact. Yet, after years of strengthening copyright legislation and enforcement and the final failure of yet another attempt to create a “gold standard” (according to big rightholders) for intellectual property protection (with the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement), there seems to be a broad agreement, even in the European Commission, that some fundamental questions should be asked. Should non-commercial uses of protected material be allowed and compensated for in new (collective) ways? Should file-sharing be discussed anew? How should user-generated content be protected and by whom? The UGC group (as well as the three other working groups of the Licences for Europe dialogue) initiated by EU Internal Market Commissioner Michel Barnier and his colleagues met four times in 2013 to debate...
by Kevin Coates | Sep 18, 2013 | News from around the Web
From CPIP: A Brief History of Software Patents (and Why They’re Valid) “Today, there is significant public debate over patents on the digital processes and machines that comprise computer software programs. These are often referred to as “software patents,” but this is an odd moniker. Aside from the similarly mislabeled debate over … Continue reading...
by Kevin Coates | Sep 13, 2013 | News from around the Web
From Antitrust & Competition Policy Blog: Institutional Advantage in Competition and Innovation Policy “Posted by D. Daniel Sokol Herb Hovenkamp (Iowa) discusses Institutional Advantage in Competition and Innovation Policy. ABSTRACT: In the United States responsibility for innovation policy and competition policy are assigned to different agencies with different authority. The principal institutional...
by Kevin Coates | Sep 12, 2013 | News from around the Web
From FOSS Patents: Apple winning Posner appeal — Chief Judge describes Google’s royalty demands as ‘crazy’ “”