The U.S. Copyright Office has issued an interim assessment on digital platform copyright governance and AI infringement liability, placing social media services, content-sharing platforms and built-in generative AI tools within the same policy conversation. The report’s immediate focus is not whether AI-generated content is useful, but whether automated AI systems used for DMCA notice-and-takedown can deal fairly with mistaken removals, under-removal and counter-notice procedures.The more difficult issue is the platform’s changing role. The traditional safe-harbour model rests on a familiar...
The UK Intellectual Property Office’s 2026–27 Corporate Plan places service transformation and AI copyright policy among its main delivery priorities. The official publication record shows that the plan was first published on 11 May 2026. With the patent side of One IPO moving into optimisation and legacy-system retirement, UKIPO plans to begin designing the trade mark service on the same shared technology base. It also acknowledges operational pressure: rising trade mark volumes have created backlogs in hearings and tribunals, while patent workloads remain affected by application growth...
MyIPO opened a public consultation on 3 July 2026 on proposed amendments to Malaysia’s Copyright Act 1987, with comments due by 14 August. The package spans AI and text-and-data mining, digital enforcement and copyright commercialisation. Among the proposals are rules for the use of protected works in AI training; stronger safeguards for technological protection measures (TPMs) and rights management information (RMI); a tighter online service-provider safe harbour with a notice-and-takedown window that may be as short as 12 hours; dynamic injunctions capable of reaching mirror, clone and...
Canada’s latest public signals on generative AI and copyright are no longer just about labelling synthetic content. The direction is broader: platforms are being pushed away from a pure notice-and-takedown posture and toward a framework built on prior authorisation, transparency and a more defensible approach to remuneration. Across the 2025 copyright consultation summary and the 2026 Canadian Heritage committee report, the same point keeps resurfacing: creators’ ability to consent, be credited and be paid cannot simply dissolve because AI systems scale faster than copyright administration...
According to a 14 July 2026 report by Spoor & Fisher, the Kenya IP Authority Bill, 2026 has been introduced in the National Assembly. It proposes merging the Kenya Industrial Property Institute (KIPI), the Kenya Copyright Board (KECOBO) and the Anti-Counterfeit Authority (ACA) into a single Kenya Intellectual Property Authority (KIPA), bringing patents, trademarks, industrial designs, copyright and anti-counterfeiting functions under one institutional framework. The bill also addresses mandatory IP recordation for imports, definitions for AI-assisted and AI-generated inventions, and a...
By mid-July 2026, two significant intellectual property reforms in East Africa had moved into sharper focus. Tanzania’s Written Laws (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill, 2026 remains under legislative consideration and proposes coordinated changes to the Trade and Service Marks Act and the Patents (Registration) Act. The draft would recognise ARIPO trade marks designating Tanzania, strengthen protection for well-known, collective and certification marks, extend the patent term from ten years to twenty years from filing, and reinforce the utility model framework. If adopted in its current...
On 4 December 2025, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in Joined Cases C-580/23 and C-795/23 on the copyright standard for works of applied art. Case C-795/23 arose from the dispute between USM and Konektra over the USM Haller modular furniture system. The Court held that applied art is not subject to a higher originality threshold than other works: protection depends on whether the object reflects free and creative choices that express the author’s personality. Choices dictated by technical function, ergonomics, safety requirements or industry standards do not, by...
Malaysia’s Intellectual Property Corporation (MyIPO) and the World Intellectual Property Organization have introduced the Creative Economy Data Model at a national CEDM forum. MyIPO Director General Yusnieza Syarmila Yusoff said the model is designed to measure the creative economy across its full value chain rather than relying only on output indicators such as revenue, jobs or exports. Its scope includes digital transformation, platform-based activity, emerging business models and the growing impact of artificial intelligence on copyright industries.The policy value of the model will...
Under Government Regulation No. 30 of 2026, Indonesia will reduce the copyright recordation fee for songs and musical works to Rp0 from 1 August 2026. During a dedicated outreach session for musicians, DJKI Director General Hermansyah Siregar presented the measure as part of a broader policy to simplify copyright procedures, widen creator participation and strengthen the national data framework for music rights. The immediate benefit is practical: composers, producers and rights managers with large catalogues will face fewer cost barriers when recording multiple works.Zero fees, however,...
During the 68th WIPO Assemblies, Vietnam’s Minister of Science and Technology, Vu Hai Quan, described intellectual property as a cornerstone of the knowledge economy. Nguyen Hoang Giang, Deputy Director General of the Intellectual Property Office of Vietnam, added that the country is accelerating IP commercialisation and preparing a legislative plan for a new Copyright Law. Vietnam’s latest IP action plan also points to stronger enforcement, new rules for AI and data, shorter examination timelines and the use of IP assets as collateral for lending.The policy mix is broader than a...
Saudi Arabia’s new Copyright Law will take effect on 12 August 2026, replacing the 2003 framework. Approved by Royal Decree No. M/169 and published in the Official Gazette on 13 February 2026, the law introduces a closely watched exception allowing reproduction of lawfully published works for the development of artificial intelligence products and algorithms, provided the user has lawfully obtained the original and the copying remains limited to that purpose. The provision is not a blanket licence for web scraping or large-scale model training: use must still satisfy the law’s safeguards...
On March 20, 2026, the White House released its National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence legislative recommendations, and the section on intellectual property immediately stood out. The document states that the Administration believes training AI models on copyrighted material does not violate U.S. copyright law, while also acknowledging contrary arguments and urging Congress not to interfere with the courts’ resolution of whether such training qualifies as fair use.
The framework is notable not only for its pro-innovation tone, but also for the second track it opens. Rather...
On 31 July 2026, the Saudi Authority for Intellectual Property (SAIP) issued a dedicated report on intellectual property protection for the esports and gaming sector, alongside the Esports World Cup in Riyadh. The report separates a game into distinct protectable assets: source code and underlying scripts may fall under copyright, user interfaces and character models may qualify for industrial design protection, interactive technologies and hardware innovations may support patent filings, while names, event identities and commercial signs remain within the trademark system. For creators,...
Qatar’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry has launched five new intellectual-property e-services covering copyright and neighbouring-rights recordals, certificate issuance, amendments, assignments and official file enquiries. The update is practical rather than cosmetic: for creators, rights holders and IP agents, copyright-related filings can now be handled with a clearer digital trail, reducing reliance on paper submissions and fragmented follow-up.The copyright upgrade sits alongside Qatar’s recent implementation of the 13th edition of the Nice Classification, after which all 45 trade...
Following World IP Day on 26 April, the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) has formally released guidance on enforcement for sports event broadcasts and related merchandise. The practical point is clear: illegal live streaming is now being treated as a time-sensitive copyright enforcement problem, with right holders expected to use pre-filed information to seek temporary blocking of specific infringing domains.For sports brands and content distributors, the value lies less in a new slogan and more in timing. A pirated match stream can capture its audience within...
The U.S. Copyright Office implemented its final GRNW rule on August 13, 2026, revising the definition of a qualifying “news website” for group registration of updates. The prior rule described eligible sites in terms broad enough to favor general-interest news outlets, including language suggesting coverage of all subjects rather than a limited field. The revised definition focuses instead on whether a website primarily provides written information about current events. In its final rule, the Office made clear that specialized publishers may qualify when they regularly report a range of...
On 10 March 2026, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on copyright and generative AI that sends a clear policy signal to the Commission and the market: if a generative AI service operates in or targets the EU, it should not be able to evade EU copyright rules simply because model training took place outside the Union. The resolution argues for a more enforceable connection between transparency duties, rightsholder reservations and practical enforcement, so that non-compliant providers do not gain a structural advantage over compliant competitors.
What makes the text especially...
On March 19, 2026, the U.S. Copyright Office announced in NewsNet that it would publish a proposed rule in the Federal Register to seek public comment on adjustments to its fee schedule. The proposed rule was published on March 20, 2026, and written comments are due by May 4, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time. The notice launches a new round of public debate over the pricing of copyright registration, recordation, and related administrative services.This is not simply a routine pricing update. The Office explained that it reviews and updates fees every few years, with the last adjustment...
On 26 March 2026, Advocate General Nicholas Emiliou delivered his Opinion in Case C-579/24 Austro-Mechana and AKM, adding an important new layer to the licensing architecture for online content-sharing service providers under the EU Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive. In his view, when users upload protected content to a platform, the process does not involve only an act of communication to the public or making available to the public; it also involves acts of reproduction in the form of digital copies made on the platform’s servers.The real significance of the Opinion,...
The application window for the WIPO Global Awards 2026 will close on March 31 at 23:59 Central European Time. The program is open to startups and SMEs from all 194 WIPO Member States, but the real test is not simply whether a business owns patents, trademarks, designs or copyrights. The stronger question is whether those rights have already been turned into something economically and socially legible: market entry, product differentiation, licensing leverage, investor credibility, operational scale, or measurable public impact. For innovative companies that already sit on a meaningful mix...
