Law and Innovation

Discussions about copyright rules for the digital age are rising. In the last quarter of 2017, the European Commission (“EC”) has been pretty busy to step up the fight against online piracy and counterfeiting; but online platforms also have a role to play. Indeed, hundreds of thousands of movies, TV shows, software and books are still available to download for free. In this article, we highlight some of the new proposals aiming at protecting copyright and ensuring that illegal content once taken down does not (too quickly) simply reappear. How does the Commission plan to step up the fight against counterfeiting and piracy? Apart from the  copyright proposal   reform adopted in September 2016, the EC recently published a number of important IP documents: -           A Communication paper on “ Tackling Illegal Content Online - Towards an enhanced responsibility of online platforms ”;   -    ...

Fresh and interesting article posted on TechCrunch about how Twitter's stock has been under pressure for months, as the company struggles to boost user growth and the potential sale. Happy reading! "Twitter continues to inch its way to a sale process, and the latest developments come in the form of alleged bids from potential buyers. Today CNBC is  reporting , and we have also independently heard, that both  Google  and  Salesforce  are interested in buying the company. We have additionally heard that  Microsoft  and  Verizon  have also been knocking, although  right now  Verizon (which also owns AOL, which owns us), may have a little  too much  on its plate. Twitter currently has a  market cap of $13.3 billion , and it opened for trading today with a jump of nearly 22%, in response to all these whispers. Google, Microsoft and Verizon have been reported as potential suitors in the...

Following the World Cup 2014 in Brazil, and the massive spread of animated GIFs, Vines, and “GIF-goal” on the Internet, mostly over Twitter and Vine (the short-form video sharing service acquired by Twitter in October 2012) but also on Facebook, the most-watched football league in the world is trying to protect their intellectual property rights. According to Dan Johnson, director of communications at the Premier League, GIF are a breach of copyright law. But is it, really?  Graphics Interchange Format, mostly commonly known as the acronym “GIF”, has not only been the subject of disagreement over its pronunciation, even called the “The Most Absurd Religious War in Geek History” (for the record, it should be pronounced so it starts with a "j" rather than with a hard "g"; although President Obama preferred to use the "hard g" ), but due to its widespread usage on the Internet recently caught the attention of the UK's Premier League communicatio...

Fresh and interesting image showing how much major tech companies make in one second. In just ONE second, Apple makes $1,997, while Google makes $658. Facebook brings in $81.