US statement on the Google Settlement

The US government recently filed a statement recommending that the court rejects the Google Book Settlement in its current wording. According to the statement, the settlement has been criticised on three grounds: violation of competition law, failure to fulfil the requirements for a class action and violation of copyright law. Curiously, the statement focuses on the first two issues, leaving copyright aside ….

Revised loi Hadopi passes lower house

France's famous “loi Hadopi” which introduces a ‘three strikes’ approach to persistent illegal fileswappers and which would allow authorities to disconnect repeat infringers, has passed through the lower house of parliament in a revised form. The law, supported by President Sarkozy, must still be approved by the French parliament and may still face another challenge in the constitutional court.

A previous version of the law, approved by parliament in June, was rejected by France's constitutional court who said that any disconnections could only be ordered by a court.

Under the new version of Hadopi, a new authority will investigate suspected cases of piracy and will have the power to issue two written warnings before a court can order an Internet connection to be disconnected and a fine of up to 30,000 euros.

Source: Reuters

Implications of the Google Book Settlement

The US House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary has held a hearing on ‘Competition and Commerce in Digital Books’. Eight statements were given, including one from Google, one from the Authors Guild and one from Marybeth Peters, Register of Copyrights.

According to Peters:

“As a matter of copyright policy, courts should be reluctant to create or endorse settlements that come so close to encroaching on the legislative function. Congress generally adopts compulsory licenses only reluctantly in the face of a failure of the marketplace, after open and public deliberations that involve all affected stakeholders, and after ensuring that they are appropriately tailored. Here, no factors have been demonstrated that would justify creating a system akin to a compulsory license for Google – and only Google – to digitize books for an indefinite period of time (…)

We are not experts on the proper scope of class action settlements, but we do wonder whether, as a constitutional matter, a class action settlement could decide issues that were not properly before the Court as part of the case and controversy presented during the litigation (…)

the proposed settlement inappropriately creates something similar to a compulsory license for works, unfairly alters the property interests of millions of rights holders of out-of-print works without any Congressional oversight, and has the capacity to create diplomatic stress for the United States.”

Brussels threatens sanctions against US

According to a recent European Commission report the US is still failing to address the need to pay a royalty fee for music broadcast in public places, such as bars, shops or restaurants. In Europe, these royalties are usually gathered by collecting societies, with royalties also being collected for US authors. The issue has been raised on different occasions by Brussels in international fora in which trade matters are discussed, in particular the World Trade Organisation. After official complaints from the EU, Washington accepted to offer financial assistance to EU artists for the period between 2002 and 2004. The arrangement expired at the end of 2004, and since then the US has not changed its relevant copyright rules, neither has it compensated EU authors with a new financial agreement. According to the report, the EU has safeguarded its rights to suspend trade benefits granted to the US if the Copyright Act is not amended.