Most who spoke at a Copyright Office symposium on moral rights were supportive of CO or congressional action to address those rights in U.S. law, though several said U.S. recognition of moral rights would be different from Europe's approach because of free speech guarantees. The joint CO-George Mason University School of Law Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property event was meant to delve into moral rights issues ahead of a more formal CO examination of those issues (see 1603150067 and 1604150074). A creator's moral rights include the right to attribution, the right to publish anonymously or under a pseudonym, and the right to preserve the integrity of a work from alteration.
The Copyright Office’s Monday symposium on moral rights will provide a solid base for a more formal CO analysis on the subject, but probably won’t lead to the office changing its position on how U.S. law should deal with moral rights to satisfy the requirements of the Berne Convention, participants told us. A creator’s moral rights may include the right to attribution, the right to publish anonymously or under a pseudonym, and the right to preserve the integrity of a work from alteration. The U.S. believes it largely satisfies the convention’s requirements for signatories to provide moral rights protections via existing laws, including the Lanham Act’s provisions on false advertising and a copyright holder’s right under the Copyright Act to control the creation of adapted or otherwise derivative works (see 1603150067).
U.S. District Court in Los Angeles granted DotConnectAfrica Trust's request for a preliminary injunction halting ICANN's delegation of the .africa top-level domain to the ZA Central Registry. DCA Trust sought the preliminary injunction amid its ongoing lawsuit against ICANN, which seeks to require ICANN to follow the terms of independent review process (IRP) proceedings that found ICANN mishandled DCA's 2013 challenge to the nonprofit's .africa delegation decision. DCA Trust also wants ICANN to reconsider the registry's application to be the .africa registry (see 1603070062 and 1603280050). “The evidence suggests that ICANN intended to deny DCA's application based on pretext,” Judge Gary Klausner said in his ruling: ICANN hasn't “introduced any controverting facts. As such, the Court finds serious questions regarding the enforceability of” provisions of a waiver that DCA Trust agreed to when it applied to be the .africa registry that waived DCA Trust's right to sue ICANN over the .africa delegation decision. Evidence “presents serious questions” about whether ICANN followed the IRP decisions in favor of DCA Trust, including “whether DCA's application should have proceeded to the delegation stage” after the IRP decision, Klausner said. DCA “will likely suffer irreparable harm” if ICANN proceeds with the .africa delegation before the lawsuit is concluded, Klausner said. ICANN didn't comment.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., urged the International Trade Commission Thursday to use its authority to take actions stakeholders recommended to address patent assertion entities' abuse of the ITC's process for evaluating Section 337 exclusion orders. PAEs take patent infringement cases that should be litigated in U.S. district courts and bring them to the ITC in a bid to force entities to pay licensing fees, Goodlatte said during a House IP Subcommittee hearing. Stakeholders recommended the ITC return to a previous evaluation standard that “does not allow legal expenses, airplane flights, and the like to satisfy the domestic industry requirement,” Goodlatte said. The ITC should apply the public interest test and the economic interest test at the beginning of a Section 337 review when determining claims consideration and the issuance of exclusion orders, Goodlatte said. The ITC should also use its public interest and economic interest analyses to articulate agency standards to “clarify which patent disputes should be adjudicated by the ITC and those which are more properly addressed by U.S. district courts,” Goodlatte said. House IP ranking member Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., questioned whether Congress needs to act to curb PAE abuses of the ITC process because the agency is already beginning to address the issue.
Supporters of the Securing Participation, Engagement and Knowledge Freedom by Reducing Egregious Efforts (Speak Free) Act (HR-2304) said Thursday it or other legislation to create a national statute to curb strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) is needed to encourage further growth of U.S. e-commerce. Congressional action on anti-SLAPP legislation also would give legislators a chance to foster a national environment that encourages free speech, anti-SLAPP stakeholders said during an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation briefing.
CTA President Gary Shapiro criticized Senate Intelligence Committee leaders Wednesday for pursuing controversial legislation as a means of addressing the ongoing encryption debate, saying the bill as currently written “is dangerously overreaching and technically unsophisticated.” Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., and committee Vice Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., publicly released a discussion draft Wednesday of their bill, the Compliance with Court Orders Act. The bill would require providers of electronic communications, storage or processing services, and software or hardware manufacturers to comply with court orders to decrypt encrypted data of its users.
The federal government must take some action to regulate digital currency to provide the sector with some certainty, said House Monetary Policy Subcommittee Vice Chairman Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., during a Cato Institute event Tuesday. “We simply cannot help ourselves to do something” given moves at the state and international level to regulate digital currency businesses, Mulvaney said. Coin Center Executive Director Jerry Brito said it “may be time for Congress to begin to consider federal pre-emption” of state-based money transmission service licensing laws on regulation of digital currency businesses in the absence of progress in harmonizing state-based regulation of those businesses. Mulvaney told us he's "not averse" to Congress exploring legislation to pre-empt state laws on digital currency, but "I'm not sure what it would look like yet."
Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood said Monday that his office will “re-evaluate” how to proceed with enforcement of its subpoena looking into Google’s search practices. A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a 2015 U.S. District Court ruling in Jackson, Mississippi, which granted Google a preliminary injunction against Hood. Several parties supporting Google told us they view the 5th Circuit’s Friday ruling as only a procedural victory that requires Hood to enforce his subpoena before a federal court can adequately evaluate the company’s claims about the AG’s investigation.
Cybersecurity stakeholders said they are closer to deciding what deliverables will result from NTIA's multistakeholder process on vulnerability research disclosure. But leaders cautioned Friday that any recommendations aren't likely to include one-size-fits-all solutions. A working group on increasing adoption and awareness of vulnerability disclosure best practices appeared to be the furthest along in gathering information to aid its recommendations, based on presentations at the meeting. A working group focusing on vulnerability disclosures that affect public safety only recently rebooted its information gathering process amid concerns from the group's stakeholders about publicity about their disclosure practices. Working groups on vulnerability disclosure incentives and multi-vendor disclosure best practices indicated their stakeholders were divided on philosophical issues underpinning potential recommendations.
There is little chance the House Judiciary Committee's Copyright Act review will result in legislation that can pass both the House and Senate before the end of the 114th Congress, House IP Subcommittee GOP Counsel Joe Keeley said during an American Bar Association event Thursday. House Judiciary has been going through a comprehensive Copyright Act review since 2013, concluding its formal meetings with stakeholders last year with a series of roundtables to supplement earlier hearings (see 1509220055 and 1511100063). House Judiciary members must now “figure out where they'd like to go” on legislation to address the myriad copyright issues the committee explored in hearings, Keeley said.