Monthly Archives: November 2018

As part of CREATe’s role in the new AHRC UK Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre (PEC), we are providing monthly updates summarising new entries to the Copyright Evidence Wiki (organised thematically). The Wiki catalogues empirical studies on copyright, informing public and policy development based on evidence. In the first of this series of posts, we summarise the new empirical studies added to this database under the themes of: Piracy; Copyright in the Courts; Open Licensing, and; Copyright and Representation.

Guest post by Dr Cheryl Foong, Lecturer at Curtin Law School in Western Australia The making available right has been a source of contention in recent times, giving rise to numerous decisions at the EU level that do not appear to be grounded in existing copyright rules or principles. This trend is not exclusive to the EU; courts around the world have struggled to interpret the right with clarity and transparency. The incongruence of EU, US and Australian caselaw on the making available right (or its national equivalents, under the so-called “umbrella solution”) prompted my doctoral research on the topic, completed earlier this year. I was keen for the opportunity to share my comparative analysis and engage with an informed … Continue reading →

Several updates have been made to CREATe’s Copyright Reform Timeline, a resource designed to keep track of the legislative process of the Copyright Directive and the many interventions surrounding it. Newest updates include details of: The trilogue negotiations held on 2 October and 25 October (and announcement of new date on 3 December); The Austrian Presidency’s compromise proposal; New studies published in respect of articles 3 (text and data mining), 11 (press publishers’ right) and 13 (internet platform liability), and; Opinions of those both for and against the Directive. We have also created a static timeline graphic detailing all key events of the legislative process of the Directive since the initial draft was issued by the Commission in September 2016, … Continue reading →

In this post, Amy Thomas (CREATe PhD candidate) analyses what she suspects to be the very first example of a software licensing agreement, and its relationship with copyright law. In my PhD thesis, I am investigating how software licensing agreements (through their terms and conditions) reveal a particular concept of the user that has changed over time. I investigate this as a private ordering mechanism. As part of this study, a historical approach is required; to this end, I endeavoured to uncover the very first example of this type of private ordering mechanism in software (and to the extend it was primarily motivated by copyright concerns, as suspected). The investigation was prompted by a memoir written by ex-IBM engineer, W.S. … Continue reading →

The European Copyright Society (an independent scholarly association to which several CREATe members contribute) has published two opinions regarding the CJEU cases C-161/17 Land Nordrhein Westfalen v. Dirk Renckhoff (the ‘Córdoba case’) and C-683/17 Cofemel v G-Star.

Dr Elena Cooper, Leverhulme Fellow at CREATe, recently presented on Intellectual Property in the Collaborative Digital Environment as part of a programme for artists working with digital technology. The talk was delivered as part of an artists’ development initiative offered by Questlab Network, offered by Studio Wayne McGregor and funded by Arts Council England. It was held at Studio Wayne McGregor’s creative arts space at ‘Here East’ on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London from 22 October to 2 November 2018.