Written by Andrew Rens on December 9th, 2019
The South African Parliament passed the Copyright Amendment Bill and the Performer’s Protection Amendment Bill in March this year (2019 for those reading this at some point in the future). As required by section 79 of the South African Constitution the bills have been sent to the President for signature.
Some critics of the Bill are calling for the Bill to be sent back to Parliament because they don’t agree with it on policy grounds. But that is not how the South African Constitution works, as Achal Prabhala and I explain in Business Day.
The United States Trade Representative has scheduled a review of South Africa’s status under the General System of Preferences. Sean Flynn examines whether sanctioning South Africa for copyright reform violate US obligations to the World Trade Organisation.
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Tags: AGOA, copyright, GSP, Perfomers Protection, UTSR
Written by Andrew Rens on November 21st, 2019
My research on the Internet of Things took me to some interesting places. Explore them with me in my article published in the Journal of Law and Technology.
“No one entity is in charge of the Internet, yet it works. The functioning of the Internet is maintained by an amalgamation of technological architectures, standards (and standards bodies) and task specific institutions, that are referred to as the Internet governance regime. But this mode of organization faces new challenges. Increasingly everyday objects, from cat feeders to traffic lights, are being fitted with sensors and controls and then connected to the Internet. The resulting Internet of Things is beset with problems of security, safety and privacy which demand public policy solutions. Yet the range of potential solutions is constrained by the global intellectual property regime. Development of technical standards is menaced by patent hold up and royalty stacking. Anti-circumvention laws threaten security research and remediation and prohibit owners and users from fixing their own property. The incompatible paradigms of Internet governance and the global intellectual property regime collide on the policy frontier of the Internet of Things.”
Andrew Rens, Who is in Charge Here? The Internet of Things,Governance, and the Global Intellectual Property Regime, 23 UCLA Journal of Law and Technology (2019)
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