It seems hard to believe that Twitter, home to more than 280 million users, is already nine years old. On July 15, 2006 the micro-blogging website launched, bringing with it a host of intellectual property concerns. Freelance photographer Daniel Morel provided
one of the most high-profi le examples of how Twitter has sometimes been problematic for IP owners. T e case dates to 2010, when Morel posted 13 pictures of the Haitian earthquake of that year onto Twitter. An editor at news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) discovered the photos and the agency then distributed some to image database Getty Images.
Anuradha Salhotra, managing partner at
law
fi rm Lall Lahiri & Salhotra, said the legislation aimed to strengthen the legal framework for IP and customs laws. “It complies with border control measures
as required by the World Trade Organization- administered TRIPS Agreement, keeping in tune with international practice and empowering customs offi cers in India to enforce the IP law,” she said. T e need for such a law appeared crucial in a
country that had faced alleged problems with counterfeits. According to the World Health Organization, in 2002 India’s pharmaceutical companies had claimed that in India’s major cities, one in fi ve medicines sold was counterfeit and that they had suff ered a loss in revenue of “between 4% and 5% annually”.
Morel claimed AFP had used the images
improperly, prompting the news agency to sue him in 2010 seeking a ruling that it could lawfully use the photos. Morel then sued AFP, Getty and T e Washington Post (which had used some of the photos but with which he later settled) for copyright infringement. In 2013, AFP and Getty were fi ned $1.2 million
for wilful infringement. T e pair, in January 2014, fi led a post-trial motion that asked for either an eradication of the jury’s fi ndings, a reduction in the amount owed to Morel, or a new trial, although there have been no further developments.
In 2007 new laws aimed at clamping down on the importation of counterfeit goods in India and shoring up the country’s customs enforcement were introduced. T e Intellectual Property Rights (Imported
Goods) Enforcement Rules, 2007 allow a right owner to notify (in writing) the commissioner of customs at the relevant port
about goods suspected of
infringing its IP rights. Customs authorities can then suspend clearance of suspected goods if the commissioner has reason to believe that
“T e tension between trademark owners and the internet is an issue that concerns all trademark owners,” wrote Chris McLeod, the current president of the Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys. McLeod was writing in the WIPR Annual 2008 but you could be forgiven for thinking he was writing in this year’s edition. His main concern was keyword advertising, where bidders pay for a name to appear at the top of internet search rankings. Trademark owners had found third parties had purchased
that
keywords matching their trademarks. In
the article, the imported goods are
IP-infringing. Writing for the WIPR Annual in 2011,
McLeod discussed advertisers purchasing keywords covering the word ‘spicy’. One individual, Andrew Wilson, took exception, claiming it would confuse customers with his ‘Mr Spicy’ Community trademark. Wilson sued Yahoo but the English High Court cleared the search engine of trademark infringement. T is decision led McLeod to conclude that the law on keyword advertising is “unfavourable to trademark owners”. Now, one of the most well-known keyword disputes is set to rumble on into 2015. In November 2014, the English Court of Appeal ordered a re-trial in the Interfl ora v Marks & Spencer (M&S) case. T e row began in 2008 and in 2013 the English High Court ruled that M&S infringed Interfl ora’s trademarks in its use of keywords for
‘Interfl ora’. Following an M&S appeal, the Court of Appeal overturned the fi nding of infringement.
In 2009, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm and Carl Lundström, the co-founders of fi le-sharing website T e Pirate Bay, were sentenced to one year in jail in Sweden and ordered to pay fi nes totalling kr30 million ($3.4 million), provoking protests across Europe. Traditionally, there has been a confl ict between
music right owners’ business models and the consumption of music online, and there have been several responses to this old problem, including the creation of
streaming
service Spotify. Elsewhere, in 2007 Radiohead (singer T om Yorke, pictured leſt ) released its album In Rainbows and asked fans to pay what they thought it was worth. In March 2015, Jay-Z and others re-launched Tidal as a rival to Spotify aſt er there was feeling among musicians that the platform was
not rewarding them suffi ciently for their work. In January 2015, Julia Reda of T e Pirate Party
published the fi rst draſt of proposals for copyright reform in the EU. She has met both hostility and support, but her sense is that the law needs to change to refl ect the role of the internet in distributing artistic works.
T e sight of 36 Dutch women being escorted out of the Holland v Denmark game during the 2010 FIFA World Cup, held in South Africa, has become one of the best-known symbols of ambush marketing. Dressed in bright orange dresses and sporting the logo of beer company Bavaria, the women’s stunt was highly memorable, but not for the right reasons in FIFA’s eyes.
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IMAGES: ARINDAMBANERJEE, EVERETT COLLECTION, BEAUTIFULDAY, NORTHFOTO /
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