Copyright Strikes Back
By Maria Sol Porro, Trademarks Lawyer, and University Professor
On Monday, June 17, a U.S. District Court in Los Angeles ruled against VidAngel and fined the video filtering service $62.4 million which it must pay in reparation for damages to the plaintiffs, The Walt Disney Company, Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, and Lucasfilm.
VidAngel, launched in 2013, is an entertainment platform that was created to help families filter out language, nudity, violence, and other content from movies and TV series. The independent company made international news in 2016 when Walt Disney Co., Lucasfilms, 20th Century Fox, and Warner Bros. all filed a lawsuit against it, claiming the video streaming service was infringing on their copyrighted material. During the trial, the Provo-based startup had previously filed for bankruptcy in 2017 and are currently still going through those proceedings.
In this context, the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles has reported that the platform streamed at least 800 titles from the studios meaning they will end up having to pay $150,000 per title in the ruling. The company’s defense was that VidAngel committed innocent infringement and should, therefore, be required to pay much less. Facing this disadvantageous ruling, VidAngel CEO …
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European Union Approves Copyright Directive
By Maria Sol Porro, Trademark Lawyer
Last March the plenary of the European Parliament approved the New Directive on Copyrights, with 348 votes in favor, 274 against and 36 abstentions, after two years of increasingly heated arguments and moods, not just between companies and content producers but also with the same citizens.
The controversial text has received the support of authors of different works and the rejection of different activists and organizations. For the former, the approval of this directive means the acquisition of more efficient tools for the protection of their rights on the internet and simpler ways to obtain redress of their rights when they are violated. On the other hand, those who opposed mainly the approval of the new directive, warned that this situation will affect the freedom of expression, replaced by the reign of censorship.
For a better understanding of the opposing positions, list below what, in our opinion, are the main novelties that the mentioned directive deals with:
* Main affected
The average user is not the objective of this regulation, according to the European Parliament itself. In this way, the legislative institution assured that the proposal for a directive would not be aimed …
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When Trading Cars Infringe Copyright
Company Capri Internacional S.A. was sanctioned in the first instance with a fine of $140,000 USD by the Copyright Commission (CDA) of Indecopi (Trademark Office of Peru), for infringing the rules on copyright and related rights due to the commercialization of the album “World Cup Russia 2018” (with the denomination “3 Kings”) and the mobile application “Virtual Stickers” in Peru.
Initially, through the sanctioning administrative process initiated on its own initiative, the CDA concluded that the mentioned company had infringed the patrimonial rights of reproduction and distribution over the photographs and stickers included in the album ‘World Cup Russia 2018’, because it did not have the authorization of the owners of said works to exploit them commercially. Notwithstanding this, the Commission extended the previous infringement of the rights of reproduction and public communication over motion picture recordings – which, although they are not considered works, are protected by related rights – to which people could access through a mobile application called ‘Virtual Stickers’.
In relation to this case, it is important to note that the sanction of the CDA to Capri International S.A. it was developed later to another fine that the Commission of Control of …
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First Prison sentence in Colombia for copyright fraud
The Criminal Court of the Zipaquirá Circuit has issued the first punishable sentence in Colombia for Defrauding Author Rights and Related Rights. The businessman Jairo Ramón Jurado Mesa received a sentence of 48 months in prison and a fine of 26.66 current minimum wages, equivalent to more than USD 7,000.
According to the information provided by the Society of Authors and Composers (SAYCO), in February 2013, the businessman Jurado Mesa held a concert called “Live the Barranquilla Festival” in a commercial establishment in the municipality of Chía, Cundinamarca. It was during this concert where the group El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico interpreted 12 songs represented in Colombian territory by SAYCO, for which said collective management society should receive the sum of twenty three million pesos (USD 8,050).
The 12 songs interpreted in this concert are represented by SAYCO in Colombian territory in execution of agreements signed with foreign collective management societies, of which ASCAP (USA) manages 7 works, SGAE (SPAIN) 2, BMI (USA) 1, SBACEM (BRAZIL) 1 and SAYCO (COLOMBIA) 1.
According to the statement made by Dr. Ricardo Gómez Durán, Legal Director of SAYCO, the condemnatory sentence to Jurado Mesa is a wake-up call …
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Copyright vs. Taxi Drivers
The Director of transport of Sayco and Acinpro (Colombian management entity of communication rights, musical works and audiovisual productions), announced in the National Congress of Taxi Drivers that they will begin to charge to taxi drivers rates between $ 7,000 (2.15 USD) and $ 19,000 (5.84 USD) for the copyrights of the music that is heard on the vehicles. According to the management company, this announcement has been taking place since 2016.
In relation to the aforementioned announcement, Sayco assures that this charge is different from the one they make to radio stations, since they pay to play music, while taxi drivers (and also intermunicipal service drivers) will be charged for lending an additional service in their vehicles.
Before this news, the Association of Owners and Drivers of Taxi (Asoproctax) asked Sayco’s manager to clarify the circumstances in which the union should pay royalties for the use of copyright. Also, Asoproctax warned that if the new payment was executed, the item would be paid by the users of the transport service through new rates since the taxi drivers would not be willing to pay, since they consider that they do not use the music radio for …
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Colombia Upgrades it’s Copyright Law
After arduous debates in the legislature and the public sphere, Law 1915 was enacted in Colombia in July. This also means Law 23 of 1982 is modified and new provisions are established in the area of copyright and related rights.
The law had a very controversial debate process, taking six years of discussions with working groups from organizations that defend digital rights, rights of people with visual disabilities, library advocates and journalists.
This project, in principle, responded to the need of Colombia to comply with some commitments acquired by the country in the framework of the Free Trade Agreement with the United States, in force since May 15, 2012.
According to the National Directorate of Colombian Law, the main changes that Law 1915 establishes include
- Specifies the scope of some author and related patrimonial rights with respect to the digital rights.
- Extends the term of protection when the rights are headed by legal persons.
- Expands the range of limitations and exceptions to copyright and related rights, reaffirming Colombia as the owner of one of the broadest ranges in these issues.
- Regulates the use of orphan works, placing Colombia as the pioneer in this type of regulation.
Argentine Justice orders Blocking Popular Movie Streaming Website Cuevana2 after Copyright Infringement
Chamber V of the Argentine National Criminal and Correctional Chamber reversed a First Instance ruling that had rejected a precautionary measure requested by Fox, Disney, Paramount, Columbia and other companies that act as joint plaintiffs against the Cuevana2 site, and ordered their provisional blocking of the site, for alleged violation of the Intellectual Property Law 11723, considering this measure as reasonable, appropriate and proportional..
The aforementioned site, created by Tomás Escobar from San Juan in 2011, which began as a small-scale personal project, aroused the interest of the large film companies as it became one of the largest sites for movies and online series from which any user can access for free, by using a streaming system, to Fox, Disney, Paramount, Columbia and other companies audiovisual productions.
For this reason, the complainant demands to the Court the blocking of all websites associated with the name of “Cuevana” in Argentina due to the fact, that the streaming service changed its name to Cuevana 2, in 2014, 5 years after it began to offer access to movies and series, without permission, under the Cuevana brand.
Thus, the second instance in charge of approving this precautionary measure, based its …
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If you don’t Pay – you don’t Play!
Concerts of the “Tigres del Norte”, a Mexican popular band, scheduled in Colombia for the first days of November were not carried out because the event’s entrepreneur did not cancel the Colombian Authors and Composers Society, (SAYCO ), the copyright of the musical works that would be heard in the show.
This precautionary measure was issued by the National Directorate of Copyright, (DNDA), and marks a historic milestone in the fight against the illegal practice of individual management in Colombia, which will make it possible to bluntly prevent any previous event musical that uses works protected by copyright, without the corresponding payment to SAYCO.
It is important to remark that SAYCO is the only Collective Management Company authorized in the country to collect the author’s rights, and according to what was expressed by the Manager, Cesar Ahumada, “(…) the organizers of the aforementioned event canceled the rights of an individual manager which corresponds to collect SAYCO.
In this way, the management company SAYCO advances in the protection of copyrights within Colombia through these and other sanctions, to prevent this kind of behavior that affects protected works from spreading.
SOURCE: http://sayco.org/…
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Could food be protected by copyright?
Since any student begins to study the law of Copyright in Argentina, we learn that this right protects the expression by a human being of ideas, procedures, methods of operation and mathematical concepts but not those ideas, procedures, methods and concepts in themselves. Typical examples of this exclusion were always weight loss methods, scientific theories and “culinary recipes”.
However, since a few years ago many chefs began to demand some recognition for the recipes and dishes created, according to the first ones, opening the subject to the following debate: does gourmet creation deserve to be protected by copyright? The answer to this basic question will determine if someone who plays the same dish as a chef must pay the author a certain right of remuneration or royalty.
As in any debate, we will always find the two positions: those in favor of recognizing the author’s copyright, basing their thinking on the need to protect the culinary creative act, comparing it with other artistic creations (musical, literary) that do they find protected. While on the other hand, we find the position contaria who argue that only can be considered “author’s dish” to that cooked by its author, …
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Hotels put the Copyright law of Argentina under pressure
As a result of an investigation by the National Commission for the Defense of Competition (CNDC), the Ministry of Commerce fined the Argentine Society of Authors and Composers of Music (Sadaic) for US $ 1,567,945. The survey determined that Sadaic charged “excessive prices” on copyright fees paid by hotels and other establishments for music reproduction in hotels guest rooms.
To determine this fine, the CNDC made an international comparison of the tariffs paid for the reproduction of musical works and the result of the investigation determined that in Argentina hotels and other establishments pay between six and nine times more than the average of the reference countries.
These fees imply a fee payment for copyright for playing music in hotels. With the calculation methodology used by Sadaic, each hotel must pay the fee for having televisions in the rooms, regardless of whether the room was occupied or not and if musical works were even used.
“This measure implies an improvement in the competitiveness of the tourism sector and enables the reduction of tariffs for rights of authors and composers charged for the secondary reproduction of TV and music content in hotels,” according to the president of …
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