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USTR issues 2018 Special 301 Report
The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) recently released its 2018 Special 301 Report, which calls on its trading partners to address IP-related challenges.
Of 64 countries reviewed, 12 were places on this year’s priority watch list: Algeria, Argentina, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Kuwait, Russia, Ukraine, and Venezuela. In addition, out-of-cycle reviews will be conducted on Colombia, Kuwait, and Malaysia.
The Report also refers to online piracy as a ‘challenging copyright enforcement issue’ in Canada, China, India, the Netherlands, Romania, Russia and Switzerland, among others.
Interestingly, Canada, Mexico, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland have been identified as the countries where stream ripping, the unauthorised converting of a file from a licensed streaming site into a unauthorised copy, is a dominant method of music piracy, causing serious harm to music creators as well as their business and creative partners.
See the report here.
Marrakesh Treaty enters into force in Russia
The Marrakesh Treaty, which improves access to published works for visually impaired or print disabled persons, entered into force in Russia on 8 May.
The Treaty requires signatory members to introduce copyright exceptions similar to those that already exist in the EU. It also provides for ways to exchange special format copies across borders and has been designed to respect the rights of authors and to encourage creativity.
Pressure on to finalise NAFTA this week
US House speaker Paul Ryan says he needs notice of a North American Free Trade Agreement deal by 17 May before a new Congress is sworn in.
Trade officials from the US, Canada and Mexico have been in talks all last week to work out a revised deal, with time running out.
As important copyright and intellectual property provisions are under discussion, ICMP and its US member the NMPA, have continually called on any final revised deal to protect creators.
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United States: Coalition calls on Congress to question Google bosses
American lobbying group the Content Creators Coalition (C3) has called on US Congress to question senior executives from Google, in the same way it quizzed Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.
“C3 believes that matters concerning members of Congress about Facebook are only more pronounced with regard to Google, and the Coalition has in the past highlighted how Google’s abuse of its platform dominance has decimated the creative economy”.
The Coalition has created a video to raise awareness of the issues.
United States: Senate introduces MMA
On 10 May, the Music Modernization Act (MMA) was introduced to the US senate. It is virtually identical to the Bill that the House passed on 25 April, which would seem to signal that the music laws should be updated smoothly. The Bill has been assigned to the Senate Judiciary Committee and has been scheduled for hearing today, 15 May.
The MMA combines proposals originally introduced in four separate bills: the Allocation for Music Producers (AMP) Act, the CLASSICS Act, the Fair Play Fair Pay Act, and a songwriter-specific version of the Music Modernization Act.
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Canada: CMPA welcomes German writers to Create Toronto
From 7 – 9 May, ICMP member the Canadian Music Publishers Association (CMPA) welcomed five talented German writers to take part in its Create Toronto initiative.
Create Toronto aims to foster collaboration between Canadian and international songwriters and help create strategic business connections that encourage export.
The initiative follows the CMPA’s export study, Export Ready; Export Critical, which illustrates the innovative ways in which Canada’s music publishers are growing their business through export.
Netherlands: IPTV provider shut down
Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN has won a ruling against an unlicensed provider of live IPTV streams and films.
A court found that Leaper Beheer BV, committed copyright infringement by offering a link to an .M3U playlist. It was ordered to shut down immediately or face fines of up to €1.25 million.
United Kingdom: A new global music rights database?
London-based start-up JAAK has announced that it is running a pilot database project using blockchain technology with Warner, BMG, Sentric and US collecting society Global Music Rights.
The project aims at building a global database of music rights information that would make it easier to identify who controls the copyright in any one song or recording.
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ICMP attends AEDEM 19 Convention of Music Publishers
ICMP’s Spanish member AEDEM held its 19th Convention of Music Publishers from 7 to 9 May in Caldes D’estrac near Barcelona.
At the two-day Convention, numerous issues affecting music publishers were discussed, including their role in a global market, the world of the music supervisor and future alternatives to Collective Management Organisations (CMOs).
An in depth presentation of the Alicante-based European Union Intellectual Property Office was also given. In addition, ICMP’s Director General Coco Carmona spoke on a panel devoted to the ‘illegal use of sheet music copies: the present and future of its licenses’.
We would like to thank AEDEM for inviting us to this successful event.
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