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Volume 12 – Number 5 - November 2009<= /o:p>

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IFRRO AGM week

IFRRO’s Silver Annive= rsary AGM
IFRRO celebrates its fir= st 25 years by looking to the past and preparing for the future. (Read more)

Google Settlement

Google Book Settlement: Ame= nded Settlement Agreement Filed
The definition of books = has been narrowed (Read more)

Legislation

EU Telecoms bill opens way = to disconnecting internet pirates
EU bodies agree that cou= rt ruling not required before disconnecting internet pirates. (Read more)

IFRRO Member News

Leading media monitoring organisations complete NLA licen= ce
New NLA licenses see extension of services to newspaper website content. (Read more)

Integrated Ibero-American data base established
CEDRO, CADRA, CDR and CE= MPRO launch an integrated repertoire database (Read more= )

VISCOPY launches exhibition= space and announces new annual prize for artists
Australasia’s budd= ing artists are offered a 10,000 AUD prize and exhibition space. (Read more)

Enforcement and Education

DELL fined for Belgian levy= infringement
Belgian copy levies shou= ld be based on maximum copying speed – Belgian court rules against DELL = (Read more)

EU affairs

EU launches Public Consulta= tion on "Creative Content Online"
EU challenges rightholde= rs, users and commercial users to reflect on creative content online. (Read more)

EU Commission calls on stakeholders to solve E-Commerce barriers
Commission claims levies= are potential barrier to E-commerce and calls for stakeholders’ solution = (Read more)

IFRRO positions on post i20= 10 and Europeana consultations
IFRRO stresses needs for consensus and flexibility in responses on i2010and Eur= opeana (Read more)

ARROW – a key to enab= ling digital libraries – towards a prototype
The ARROW project designs pilot – and attracts attention (Read more)

= Development

New IFRRO members
The Board approves new R= RO in Tanzania (KOPITAN) and new Associate member in Korea (KOSA) (Read more)

Digital matters

First Belgian E-Book Portal launched
Boek.be has set up an eb-book portal to tap into Flemish market (Read more= )

IFRRO Digital Licenses questionnaire
IFRRO follows up digital mandates survey with questionnaire to find link to licenses. (Read more)=

WIPO

Cairo Conference addresses exceptions and limitations to exclusive rights (Read more)
Focus on education and people with print disabilities in joint Arab League/WIPO conference

EVENTS

17-18 November 2009, 1st Annual European E-Commerce Conference -The New E-Commerce Pathway, Brussels/Belgium

18-19 November 2009, International conference on = trends in copyright protection, Wuhan/China

19-20 November 2009, Mercosur Anti-piracy conference, Buenos Aires/Arg= entina

1st December 2009, Conference "Content on line and crea= tive rights", Brussels/Belgium

8-10 December 2009, Conference "Digital Strategies for Heritage", Rotterdam/The Netherlands<= /b>

14-18 December 2009, Standing Committee on Copyri= ght and Related Rights, Geneva/Switzerland

15-16 December 2009, <= span lang=3DEN-US style=3D'mso-ansi-language:EN-US'>Conference "Enforcement= of Intellectual Property Rights - With a Special Focus on Trademarks and Patents", Stockholm/Sweden

19-20 January 2010, Academic Publishing in Europe: "Researchers, Librarians & Publishers”, Berlin/Germany

Links to other News:

= ACAP October Newsletter

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IFRRO's Silver Anniversary = AGM

Over 200 delegates and guest= s joined in the celebration of IFRRO's 25th Anniversary at the IFRRO Annual General Meeting hosted by KOPINOR in Oslo. &n= bsp; Deputy Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Elisabeth Walaas, welcomed delegates on behalf of the Norwegian Minister of Culture. She stre= ssed the importance of copyright in protecting the rights of authors and in promoting cultural diversity. Her support for properly managed access for the disabled and digitization, and for development training were echoed in the words = of encouragement also offered from WIPO, ARIPO, OAPI and IFLA. In a special ceremony to mark the 25th Anniversary, delegates heard from some of the lea= ding lights in IFRRO's first years - Joe Allen, Paul Asser and John-Willy Rudolph – as they discussed IFRRO's early trials and triumphs with Monica See= ber, who wrote the official history of IFRRO: "Enabling Access – 25 Y= ears of IFRRO".

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Google Book Settlement: Ame= nded Settlement Agreement Filed

On November 13, 2009, the parties in Authors Guild, et al. v. Google Inc. filed an amendment to the Original Settlement in response to discussio= ns with the United States Department of Justice and objections to the Original Settlement. The Amended Settlement Agreement, awaiting Court approval, may = be found at the Google Settle= ment site. For US works, the definition of Books remains largely unchanged: US works must have been published and registered with the US Copyright Office by January 5, 2009 to= be included in the Amended Settlement. However, if the works are not US works, they are only included in the Amended Settlement if they were published by January 5, 2009 and either were registered with the US Copyright Office by that date or their place of publication was in Canada, the UK, or Australia.   The deadline to claim Books = and Inserts for Cash Payments has been extended from January 5, 2010 to March 3= 1, 2011. The Removal deadline as to Google has been extended from April 5, 201= 1 to March 9, 2012. (The Removal deadline as to the libraries’ digital cop= ies remains April 5, 2011.)

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EU Telecoms bill opens way = to disconnecting internet pirates

A last minute agreement on t= he EU Telecoms package, between member government representatives, the European Parliament and the European Commission, leaves Internet users suspected of infringing copyright laws facing suspension of their connections or other administrative measures without the need for a court ruling. However suspects will have the rig= ht to "a prior, fair and impartial procedure..., including the right to be heard”. It is expected = that the bill will now be signed without further amendments.

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Leading media monitoring orga= nisations complete NLA licence

The NLA has completed web da= tabase licence agreements with leading media monitoring organisations - Digital Media Services, D= urrants, MediaGen, Precise Media, Press Data, PressIndex and TNS Media Intelligence. The new licenc= es give these organisations the right to create and deliver paid media monitor= ing services including content from over 1,000 UK newspaper websites. The licen= ces form part of the NLA extension of services and licences to newspaper website content. The NLA expects to complete licence agreements with other provider= s of paid monitoring services in the near future and with users of these services from January 2010. Licensed media monitoring agencies will be recorded at www.nla.co.uk.   (Back to section<= /a>)

Integrated Ibero-American data base established

CEDRO (Spain), CADRA (Argent= ina), CDR (Colombia) and CeMPro (Mexico) have set up a jo= int data base giving access to their combined repertoires - the Ibero-American RROs Integrated Repertoire, (RIEDRI). The database is open to all Spanish and Portuguese RROs and users can search titles at one of the individual repertoires or at all of them at the same time. RIEDRI is intended mainly to help developing RROs in Latin America by providing a basic repert= oire management tool and as a marketing aid to support licensing efforts.=

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VISCOPY launches exhibition= space and announces new annual prize for artists

Australasia’s not-for-= profit rights collecting society for visual arts, VISCOPY, opened a new exhibition= centre at its new premises in Sydney on 9 November. At the same time it announced an a= nnual prize, worth 10,000 Australian dollars, for professional artists with two y= ears experience but not yet recognised by a commercial gallery. The prize is in remembrance of John Fries, a Director of VISCOPY who died earlier this year in an accident.

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DELL fined for Belgian levy infringement

The Court of First Instance in Brussels has sentenced Dell (Dell Netherlands and Dell Belgium) to pay approximately 1.2 million EUR for over= due equipment levies to Reprobel.   The case centred on whether the level of the levy should be based on “normal” quality or maximum achievable copy speed. The Court ruled that the maximum or draft mode speed should be taken into account. It also stated that the Belgian Copyright Legislation - which also takes into account unauthorised copies when fixing the remuneration – was compatible with the Europe= an Directive and noted that the spirit of the Directive aimed at providing a “high level” of protection of intellectual property. Dell has o= ne month in which to appeal against this judgement.

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EU launches Pu= blic Consultation on "Creative Content Online"
A new EU consultation paper outlines the content online-related challenges for three groups of stakeholders – rightholders, consumers= and commercial users – and invites them to start a reflection on possible European responses. With this public consultation the Commission's services wish to launch “a wide-ranging debate on how to develop vibrant online markets for goods and services protected by intellectual property rights”. The consultation addresses the role of legal online markets and explores a variety of copyright management models. A Reflection Document of DG INFSO and DG MARKT is also available. The deadline for respons= es is 5 January 2010. IFRRO is preparing a submission.

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= EU Commission calls on stakeholders to solve E-Commerce barriers

The Commission has published= a Communication on Cross-Border Business to Consumer e-Commerce in the EU, COM(2009)557, which pinpoints copyright levies as one impediment to E-Commerce. The communication is linked to its "The Mystery Shopping Evaluation of Cross-Border E-Commerce in the EU report" which has concluded t= hat 60% of cross-border internet shopping orders are refused. In its FAQ on D= ismantling barriers to cross-border online shopping, the Commission states that there are ma= ny problems now with cross-border management of copyright levies on sales of b= lank media and recording devices and calls upon stakeholders to redouble their efforts to find practical solutions.

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IFRRO positions on post i20= 10 and European consultations
IFRRO respo= nses have been submitted in reply to two EU consultations - “Post-i2010: Priorities For a New Strategy for European Information Society (2010-2015)” and “EUROPEANA – next steps”. The responses both stress the impo= rtance of making content available legally and relying on stakeholder-led solutions rather than legislation in addressing disputes. The submissions can be found under European Union on the submissions page of the IFRRO website.

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ARROW – a key to enab= ling digital libraries – towards a prototype
ARROW (http://www.arrow-net.eu/) i= s a EU sponsored project run by a consortium which inclu= des European national libraries, publishers, writers, collective management organisations and IFRRO. It aims at facilitating the = identification across border of rights, rightholders and right status in a work as well as building a registry for orphan works. The value of ARROW for the future of digital libraries and in particular Europeana is increasingly recognized in the EU institutions and Member States and by professionals of the book sector. Recent European Commission documents and hearings refer to it and national ministers including the French Minister of Culture Frédéric Mitterand have expressed interest in being kept informed of the evolution of the project. A prototype is under construction and scheduled to be piloted in early 2010. = The consortium hopes to offer use of the system across Europe in 2011.

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New IFRRO members

The IFRRO Board approved two= new IFRRO Members at its Board meeting in Oslo in October. KOPITAN, the RRO for Tanzania has = become a RRO Member and the Korean Society of Authors (KOSA), becomes an Associate Member.

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First Belgian E-Book Portal launched

Boek.be= - the Belgian umbrella asso= ciation of Dutch language book publishers and booksellers, has launched its e-book portal www.e-boek.= org on 22 October. = The e-boek.org model is based on the German approach, in that a percentage of t= he proceedings of e-book sales is paid to physical "reference" book shops, to be chosen during the registration phas= e by the customer. Boek.be, which sells the e-books directly to end customers, aims to launch the e-book market in Flanders. Already a= round 3.000 titles - are offered i= n the ePub-format, allowing access through various e-r= eaders such as BeBook, Cybook, Sony Ereader, etc. &n= bsp; (Back to section)

RROs and the Digital Enviro= nment
A questionnaire to the membership in June/July IFRRO showed that nearly all responding RROs hold mandates to authorise digitisation, such as scanning of analogue material f= or the printing out of a hard copy or for the posting to secure networks. Several = also licence copying from digital originals for inte= rnal use; downloads from Internet and similar sources including for the making of further hard copies or for posting to internal networks; downloads and re-u= se of paid-for digital content; downloads and re-use of free-to-view web pages; projection of material to whiteboards, the inclusion of copyright material = in power point presentations, etc. Licensing of education frequently includes Virtual Learning Environments (VLE), also for digital uses. Nearly 50% incl= ude the licensing of the use of orphan works, some also out-of-commerce works and/or the transformation of material to alternate formats readable by visu= ally impaired. A second questionnaire was launched in November to try to make the link to licensing. The aim wo= uld be to produce a cross matrix showing whether the mandate had resulted in a lic= ense and on what basis.

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Cairo Conference addresses exceptions and limitations to exclusive rights
On 2 November the League of Ar= ab States and WIPO co-organised a conference in Ca= iro on copyright, copyright management and exceptions/limitations to exclusive rig= hts. Representatives came from all over the Arab region and from African countri= es such as Nigeria, Somalia and Senegal. Access to copyright works is clearly on the political agenda and the conference focused in particular exceptions in fav= our of education and people with print disabilities. IFRRO’s CEO Olav Sto= kkmo was on the panel that discussed accessibility for the print disabled. He stressed that access to copyright works is most comprehensively achieved through licensing in which collective licensing through RROs is indispensab= le to complement direct licensing in order to offer a complete solution. The shortage of RROs in Middle East countries is a challenge to be addressed by authors and publishers in the region as well as by IFRRO.

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