TheNewsGuru

Tag: COPYRIGHT

  • Buhari signs Copyright Act, Laboratory Institute bill into law

    Buhari signs Copyright Act, Laboratory Institute bill into law

    President Muhammadu Buhari has assented to two Bills recently passed by the National Assembly.

    The bills are the Copyright Act 2022 and the Federal College of Medical Laboratory Science and Technology, Jos, Act.

    Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (House of Representatives), Nasiru Baballe Ila, disclosed this in a statement and explained that the two bills were assented to by the President on the 17th of March 2023.

    He said: “Copyright Act 2022, this Act repeals the Copyright Act, Cap C28, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004 and enact the Copyright Act 2022 to provide for the regulation, protection and administration of copyright.

    “The enactment the new Copyright Act has again demonstrated the commitment of this administration to re-energizing Nigeria’s creative economy and making it more globally competitive in the digital and age.

    “The principal objectives of the new law, as outlined in section 1 are to: protect the rights of authors and ensure just rewards and recognition for their intellectual efforts; provide appropriate limitations and exceptions to guarantee access to creative works; facilitate Nigeria’s compliance with obligations arising from relevant international copyright treaties and conventions; and enhance the capacity of the Nigerian Copyright Commission for effective regulation, administration, and enforcement.”

    According to him, the new Copyright Act “expands the rights of authors, raises the sanctions for criminal infringements and more adequately addresses the challenges posed by digital and online use of copyright works.

    “The Act also provides specially for the needs blind, visually impaired and print disabled persons to have access to learning and reading materials in accessible formats.”

    He further observed that the ‘Federal College of Medical Laboratory Science and Technology, Jos, Act, repeals the Federal School of Medical Laboratory Science, Jos (Establishment) Act, 2018 and enacts the Federal College of Medical Laboratory Science and Technology, Jos Act, 2023.

    “To this end, the newly signed Act “establishes the Federal College of Medical Laboratory Science, Jos, to make the Institution more effective in the discharge of its functions by strengthening the organisational framework, and to bring its provision in conformity with current democratic principles and operations of existing educational institutions, and the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” Hon. Ila noted.

  • Meghan Markle wins UK copyright claim over letter To Father

    Meghan Markle wins UK copyright claim over letter To Father

    A British court on Wednesday upheld Meghan Markle’s copyright claim against Associated Newspapers, the publisher of the Mail on Sunday and MailOnline, over its publication of a letter to her father.

    The ruling by judge Mark Warby means the Duchess of Sussex, as Markle is formally known, has now won every part of her legal claim against the newspaper group, which published a handwritten letter she wrote to her father Thomas Markle.

    Warby said on Wednesday at a remote hearing lawyers acting for Queen Elizabeth II had assured him the copyright did not belong to the Crown so he was granting “summary judgement” over that remaining aspect of the case, too.

    In February the High Court issued Meghan with a “summary judgement”, meaning she won her privacy and data protection rights claims against Associated Newspapers over the letter’s publication without having to go to trial.

    Warby also ordered the Mail on Sunday to print a front-page statement acknowledging her legal victory.

    But the judge said at the time her copyright claim needed further scrutiny because the newspaper group suggested Meghan did not fully own the letter’s copyright and members of the royal communications team helped her draft it.

    Meghan’s solicitor, Ian Mill QC, said on Wednesday lawyers for the Keeper of the Privy Purse — the official responsible for the monarch’s private funds — had written “disclaiming any claim to copyright on behalf of the crown”.

    Mill said he also received a letter from lawyers for Jason Knauf, previously communications secretary to the Sussexes, saying he did not write or help draft the letter.

    The newspaper group’s lawyer, Andrew Caldecott, said it was “a matter of regret” that Knauf had not clarified this earlier.

    Meghan’s letter to her estranged father was written a few months after she married Queen Elizabeth II’s grandson, Prince Harry, and asked him to stop talking to tabloids and making false claims about her in interviews.

    Meghan and her husband, the Duke of Sussex, have successfully mounted further legal action over media breaches of their privacy since moving to the United States last year.

    At the same time the couple have engaged with media on their own terms, giving an explosive interview in March to US chat show host Oprah Winfrey, in which they said unnamed royals had made racist remarks about how dark their son’s skin would be.

  • Again, Twitter goes tough on Trump over copyright complaint

    Again, Twitter goes tough on Trump over copyright complaint

    Twitter has on Saturday disabled a campaign-style video shared by US President Donald Trump, citing a copyright complaint.

    The video disappeared from the president’s Twitter feed with the notification: “This media has been disabled in response to a report by the copyright owner.”

    The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. However, the video was said to have included music from the group Linkin Park.

    Twitter began challenging Trump’s tweets in May and has repeatedly clashed with him since then.

    The social media company has several times disabled or commented on tweets by the president because of what it said were copyright complaints or violations of a policy against threatening violence.

    Twitter removed an image the president tweeted on June 30, which included a picture of Trump, because of a complaint from the New York Times, whose photographer had shot the image.

    The company also put a tweet from the president behind a warning label in late May, saying that he had violated its rules against “glorifying violence” when he advocated that Minneapolis authorities be tough in responding to protests over the death of George Floyd.

  • Google says EU new copyright directive is one step forward, two steps back

    Google says EU new copyright directive is one step forward, two steps back

    Google has said the European Union (EU) new copyright directive is one step forward and two steps back.

    TheNewsGuru (TNG) reports Google’s SVP of Global Affairs, Kent Walker made this known in a blog post on Sunday.

    European lawmakers recently agreed on a final text of a new copyright directive, and many voices, including consumer associations, creators, small publishers, academics and startups have shared their concerns about the outcome.

    “Having studied the final text, we agree that the directive would not help, but rather hold back, Europe’s creative and digital economy.

    “We support updating copyright rules for this digital age, recognize the value of content that creators and rights holders produce and care deeply about journalism.

    “We all share a belief in the social value of knowledge and content, and when publishers and creators succeed, we succeed,” Walker stated.

    According to Google, the latest text improves the version adopted by the European Parliament in September 2018.

    “Take Article 13. Platforms making a good-faith effort to help rights holders identify and protect works should not face liability for every piece of content a user uploads, especially when neither the rights-holder nor the platform specifically knows who actually owns that content. The final text includes language that recognizes that principle.

    “At the same time, the directive creates vague, untested requirements, which are likely to result in online services over-blocking content to limit legal risk. And services like YouTube accepting content uploads with unclear, partial, or disputed copyright information could still face legal threats.

    “The text needs to be clearer to reduce legal uncertainty about how rights holders should cooperate to identify their content—giving platforms reference files, as well as copyright notices with key information (like URLs) to facilitate identifying and removing infringing content, while not removing legitimate material.

    “Article 13 could impact a large number of platforms, big and small, many of them European. Some may not be able to bear these risks. This would be bad for creators and users, who will see online services wrongly block content simply because they need to err on the side of caution and reduce legal risks.

    “Then there’s Article 11. Again, we’ve seen improvements to earlier versions of the text. We’ve always said the copyright directive should give all publishers the right to control their own business models, making it possible for them to waive the need for a formal commercial license for their content. And it seems that the directive gives publishers the freedom to grant free licenses, which makes it easier for publishers of all sizes to make money from getting more readers.

    “Yet this latest version hurts small and emerging publishers, and limits consumer access to a diversity of news sources. Under the directive, showing anything beyond mere facts, hyperlinks and “individual words and very short extracts” will be restricted. This narrow approach will create uncertainty, and again may lead online services to restrict how much information from press publishers they show to consumers. Cutting the length of snippets will make it harder for consumers to discover news content and reduce overall traffic to news publishers, as shown by one of our recent search experiments.

    “Finally, while we share the directive’s goal of promoting quality journalism, the directive’s definition of what counts as a “press publisher” could well be interpreted too broadly, including anything from travel guides to recipe websites – diluting any benefits for those who gather and distribute the kinds of news most central to the democratic process.

    “We recognize and appreciate the progress in the text of the directive, but we remain concerned about unintended consequences that may hurt Europe’s creative economy for decades to come. The details matter, so we urge policy makers to take these concerns into consideration ahead of the decisive vote and in the implementation phase that follows,” Google argued.

     

  • Google warns EU against copyright reforms as compromise looms

    Google has warned against planned EU copyright reforms that would make internet companies liable for infringements and require them to pay for publishing press snippets, amid signs that a compromise is emerging on the controversial measures.

    The overhaul, proposed by the European Union’s executive in 2016, aims to make EU copyright rules fit for the digital age by ensuring that artists and news publishers are fairly remunerated for work that appears online.

    However, critics charge that the measures will damage the free exchange of information, with some media outlets warning they could spell “the death of the internet.”

    Google Senior Vice President and General Counsel Kent Walker warned of the reform’s unintended consequences, in a blog post published on Thursday.

    “Restricting the amount of news Google can republish to weblinks and short fragments of headlines would cause a substantial traffic loss to news publishers,’’ Walker said.

    He added that holding internet companies liable for copyright infringements would harm Europe’s creative economy.

    EU member states are trying to hash out a common position on the reforms in order to strike a deal with the European Parliament, which agreed its position in September.

    According to a draft text seen by dpa, in recent days, France and Germany agreed on a compromise that would exempt smaller companies from the provisions on copyright infringements.

    This paves the way for a possible agreement among member states as soon as Friday, with a view to concluding negotiations with parliament coming week.

    Efforts to strike a deal failed three weeks ago due to disagreement between France and Germany.

    However, the parliament’s chief negotiator, Axel Voss, told dpa he was disappointed with their compromise.

     

  • Newly launched indigenous pay TV, TStv in copyright infringement scandal

    …the letters are fake, meant to bias Nigerians – TStv

    The newly launched indigenous pay TV, TELCOMM SATELLITE TV, TStv have been accused of copyright infringement by some international content providers.

    TheNewsGuru.com reports that Turner Broadcasting System Europe Limited and belN in a letter accused TStv of infringing their exclusive distribution rights to certain television programmes.

    The company noted that TStv did not have the rights to air the Cable News Network (CNN) channel, owned by Turner Broadcasting System and the 10 beIN Sports channels it advertised on its website.

    However, in a swift response on its Facebook page, TStv said the letter was fake and designed to create a bias against their product in the minds of Nigerians.

    The disclaimer reads: “We are not unaware of the messages circulating the social media regarding letters from belN Sports and Turner respectively. We wish to inform Nigerians once again that the letters being circulated are fake. They were designed primarily to bias Nigerians. Kindly disregard the said frivolous letters. TStv Africa… connecting your world!”

    Turner Broadcasting System, in a September 27 letter to the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC), claimed exclusive distribution rights to the CNN channel in English.

    It said: “In this respect, the distribution and broadcast of the above-mentioned channel in Africa including in Nigeria has to be authorised by us in advance.

    “The distribution and broadcast of this channel without authorisation will infringe our intellectual property rights and constitute acts of piracy.

    “This would amount to an unlawful use, which will infringe the rights and harm the interests of our company, and cause us a substantial prejudice.

    “In this context, we invite you to undertake in writing not to distribute CNN, and not to use or reproduce the channels’ trademarks on any advertising or promotional material.

    “In the absence of your confirmation should you include CNN within your channel line- up we will take the necessary and appropriate measures and bring civil or criminal judicial actions in order to protect our rights.”

    In its September 28 letter to the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), beIN claimed there was no contractual agreement between it and TStv that would give the company the license to beam its contents.

    It said: “We have become aware that your company TSTV intends to launch a pay television service to subscribers in Nigeria and Sub-Saharan Africa generally. Information about this service is contained on the website at htt-z tstvafrica.cbm.”

    The Qatar based firm said it invests substantial sums in acquiring those rights, “which are highly valuable.”

    “Other parties are not permitted to copy and re-broadcast belN Content without express authorisation.

    “belN is also the owner of trademarks and other rights in the name belN and associated branding (‘belN Trademarks’). Other parties are not permitted to use belN Trademarks without express authorization.”

    TheNewsGuru.com reports that TStv was launched on Sunday, Oct. 1 and to ease their operations in the country the Federal Government announced a three-year tax relief and tax free dividends to all investors in the company.

     

  • ‘Nigeria needs a very strong law on intellectual property’-Afrobeat singer declares

    Edaota Agbeniyi better known as “Edaoto’’, an Afrobeat singer, on Sunday said that government should amend the law on copyright so that it could curb piracy and other vices affecting artistes in the country.

     

    “Nigeria needs a very strong law on intellectual property to curtail piracy and other vices affecting artists. The existing ones need to be amended,’’ he said.

     

    Agbeniyi said that the Nigerian copyright laws have several areas that need to be amended so that they could handle copyright infringement.

     

    He said that the piracy laws needed to be enforced on accused after appearing in the court of law.

     

    “Nobody has been given a very stiff penalty like jailed sentence for piracy or plagiarism in the country.

     

    “How can a court of competent jurisdiction fine an accused somebody N1,000 or N10,000, for an offence as grave as plagiarism.

     

    “Just like in every sector of the Nigerian economy and daily activities, the judicial system has to be very strong to curtail the intellectual property thief.

     

    “If the perpetrators know they will be jailed for long and the court will not free them, they will desist from the act,’’ he said.

     

    He noted that corruption and greed are making piracy to thrive in the country.

     

    “Piracy is so bad in Nigeria that local artists and filmmakers now refuse to release their latest albums and movies into the retail market.

     

    “The intellectual property protection through an enforced law is the only way of protecting the creativity of authors, producers, filmmakers and others.

     

    “The law has to ensure that the nation’s intellectual treasures and the resulting economic derivation are better secured,’’ he said.

     

    The musician noted that lack of adequate protection over time had resulted in direct economic loss to right owners while government was denied revenue from legitimate products.

     

    He stressed that intellectual theft and fraudulent claims that characterized piracy and other intellectual property abuses had been left unchecked for long in the country.

     

    According to him, experts say that a modern and well managed copyright system can be a catalyst for economic reform in the country.

     

    “For that to be achieved, we need strong infrastructure in place and stiffer laws to fight piracy and allow every man to enjoy the fruits of his labour,’’ he said.