Bits and pieces: some recent news

The United Kingdom's Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) has announced the launch of a new online title search tool for legal professionals. The tool, which licensees can play with to their heart's content here -- enables customers to find out whether they can lawfully photocopy, scan or digitally reproduce from a publication under their firm’s CLA licence.  The idea is that each title search allows licensees to confirm quickly whether the activity is compliant with the terms of their CLA licence. The title search, developed in response to research with customer groups, is designed to complement existing website support for included and excluded licence material.

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Last Friday Neil J. Wilkof posted an article on the IPKat weblog, "Government Intervention in the Publishing Industry: Say It Isn't True!", which in hindsight might have been better placed on the 1709 Blog, given its relevance to the copyright-based publishing industry. Neil is particularly keen to hear from correspondents in jurisdictions where the market for publications in the local language is small and intervention is seen as having a cultural or political dimension to it which transcends, rightly or wrongly, the notion that the best conditions for commercial exploitation are those which are dictated by the open market.  You can read Neil's piece here.

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Here's a reminder to readers that there are two rather appealing events coming up in London next month, each of which comes with a substantial discount for readers of this weblog.  They are as follows:

• 11 July 2012: Half day workshop, "Design Rights", hosted in Central London by LexisNexis Conferences and Training. Further particulars of the programme and registration details are available here. To qualify for a 10% registration discount fee as a blog reader, quote code L11290/IPKAT.
• 11 July 2012: Half day workshop, "IP and the Creative Industries", hosted in Central London by LexisNexis Conferences and Training. Further particulars of the programme and registration details are available here. To qualify for a 10% registration discount fee as a blog reader, quote code L11290/IPKAT.

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Polish blogger and IP enthusiast Tomasz Rychlicki has posted this piece on an unusual episode involving the actual or deemed date of death of an author.  Children's book author, humanitarian and educator Henryk Goldszmit (better known as Janusz Korczak), was believed to have died in the Treblinka concentration camp in 1942 but, for obvious reasons, no eye-witness evidence was available. The County Court in Lublin, in an order of 30 November 1954, considered Korczak’s death to have been 9 May 1946, with the consequence that his works would be expected to be available in the public domain from 1 January 2017. This outcome has now been challenged by the Modern Poland Foundation, as Tomasz explains.