Something to read? Some recent literature

London is currently beset by another round of industrial (in)action which has led to cancellations, delays and station closures on much of its fabled Underground system -- and another dose of the same is scheduled for next week. So if you are in the city and find that you are spending an inordinate amount of time waiting in bus queues, sitting in traffic jams or otherwise being intellectually unproductive, why not catch up on your copyright reading?  For example:

On Monday, the jiplp weblog posted a note to alert its readers to "Why copyright and linking can tango", this being the title of an article that has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (JIPLP) and which the Editor decided to make available to readers even in its raw, unset form, following the announcement that the decision in Case C-466/12 Svensson, a reference to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for a preliminary ruling, was to be handed down next week, on Thursday 13 February. To read the questions that the CJEU has been asked, plus Alexander's abstract and a link to the draft article, click here.

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CISAC, the International Confederation of Authors and Composers Societies, issued a press release last week which announced some of the key findings from its Global Royalty Collections report, based on 2012 figures. For example,

• Gross royalty collections achieved a new record high of € 7.8 billion, an increase of 2% over 2011.
• 58,8% of global collections were generated in Europe (€4.6 billion) 
• 87% of collections were accounted for by the musical repertoire
• 75% of collections were from public performance royalties
• 4% of collections coming from digital (€ 301 million)
• There was a 5.1% decline in mechanical reproduction royalties

The report itself, "Sustaining Creativity: Growth in Creators' Royalties as Markets Go Digital", is 28 pages long but will consume quantities of your colour cartridges if you let it.  enjoy!

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This month's (ie February) issue of the European Intellectual Property Review (EIPR) is positively oozing with copyright content: Sir Cliff Richard, Betty Boop and mutant copyright and open access are among the attractions on offer.  Frustratingly for those of us who like to cut-and-paste, the abstracts of current articles and case comments are not made available online ...