The CopyCat - as Blockbuster sinks, the Pirates set sail again

The games world is up in arms after what appeared to be concerted effort by content owners to target fan generated postings on YouTube, using YouTube's Content ID takedown system. Player-created videos on YouTube have been subject to copyright crackdowns in the past, but gamers say not on this scale - with Nintendo (perhaps unfairly) taking the brunt of the initial blame, with reports of thousands of videos being flagged over the last few days for alleged copyright violations. The videos - which range from YouTubers playing the games or providing commentary, or simply showing a trailer and talking about the game, are often monetized - and some gamers earn a living from recording game videos. YouTube responded to the furore by saying "We recently enabled Content ID scanning on channels identified as affiliates of MCNs. This has resulted in new copyright claims for some users, based on policies set by the relevant content owners. As ever, channel owners can easily dispute Content ID claims if they believe those claims are invalid."

It seems that the major record labels have decided that the new EU wide term extension for sound recordings does not apply to unreleased material - well not with 'use it or lose it' provisions out and about anyway: Rather than full scale releases, some of the labels have decided on limited releases only: A new Sony collection of unreleased Bob Dylan recordings — concerts, radio and television appearances, and studio outtakes, all from 1963 — has just appeared in a limited edition of 100 copies, on six vinyl LPs - “The 50th Anniversary Collection: 1963”. Universal and Apple are being a lot more generous to fans:  Universal plans to release, on iTunes only, “The Beatles Bootleg Recordings 1963,” a compilation of 59 recordings, among them a handful of studio outtakes; a few dozen BBC performances, drawn from the same well as the recent “On Air” BBC two-CD set; and informal demonstration recordings of two songs the group gave to other artists — Paul McCartney and John Lennon’s acoustic guitar duet version of “Bad to Me” and a Lennon piano demo of “I’m in Love.” Some interesting comment on the labels' thinking can be found on the NY Times website here and on the Independent here.

The Tennessean (fast becoming a favoured read!) reports that pop star Ariana Grande, along with her publishing company and record label, are facing copyright infringement lawsuit related to her hit song “The Way.” The suit claims Grande and producer/writer/co-performer Mac Miller copied from the 1972 disco song “Troglodyte” when they recorded “The Way,” which became a major hit earlier this year and iTunes no 1 single, selling more than 2 million copies. The federal suit from  Minder Music claims Grande and Miller duplicated the vocal beginning to the Jimmy Castor Bunch’s “Troglodyte” when they recorded “The Way.” “Troglodyte" begins with Jimmy Castor speaking the phrase, “What we’re gonna do right here is go back, way back, back into time.”  “The Way” begins with the spoken phrase “What we gotta do right here is go back, back into time.”  The attorney in the claim is Richard Busch of King & Ballow who has previously successfully brought claims against samplers - in particular of George Clinton and Funkadelic and  on behalf of Bridgeport Music.

Pirates Ahoy! Having been registered in Greenland, Iceland and most recently in the Caribbean island of Sint Maarten, it seems the Pirate Bay's domain name set sail yet again, this time to Ascension Island, located somewhere in middle of the South Atlantic Ocean, and hopefully (well for the Pirates at least) well out of the reach of those pesky rights organisations that represent the global sound recording and music publishing industries - and their artists. Oh, but that was not enough - less than a week later - anchors away - they are in Peru! a TPB spokesperson told Torrentfreak: "They should wait for our new PirateBrowser, then domains will be irrelevant. Once that is available then all links and sites will be accessible through a perfectly legal piece of browser software and the rest of it will be P2P, with no central point to attack via the legal system. By their actions [the entertainment industry] finally brought on the next generation of decentralised services".

CMU Daily reports that the  dispute between the Beastie Boys and American toy company GoldieBlox over the latter's use of a rework the former's track 'Girls' in an advert isn't going away, even though the toy maker swapped in an alternative piece of music on the ad and issued a positive statement professing admiration for the band. Whilst the surviving members of the Beastie Boys Michael Diamond and Adam Horovitz issued an open letter said they respected GoldieBlox's mission to make toys for young girls that break down gender stereotypes, they added, they had previously made a conscious decision to not license their tracks for use in advertising, so much so that the third Beastie Boy, the late Adam Yauch, stated that desire in his will. 

Those Girls

Before the Beastie Boys' open letter, GoldieBlox had issued a pre-emptive legal strike anticipating the band’s claim seeking court confirmation that, because their version of 'Girls' mocked the sexist lyrics of the original, that constituted parody, and therefore the toy firm was allowed to use the track without permission under the doctrine of “fair use”.  Interestingly it seems GoldieBlox had posted similar adverts online before, including music by Daft Punk and Avicii, presumed to be without the artist or their record label’s or music publisher’s permission. Reports now say that GoldieBlox management added a caveat to an offer to withdraw their legal action asking the Beastie Boys to commit to never launch their own copyright litigation against the company.  It seems the band declined to make such a commitment, and in return asked GoldieBlox to issue a more apologetic statement over its use of 'Girls' without permission, and to make a suitable donation to charity. With little progress having since been made, the Beastie Boys have now filed a countersuit that formally accuses GoldieBlox of copyright infringement as well as unfair competition and misappropriation of publicity rights - more about this from Miri on the IPKat here. 

DVD and games rental firm Blockbuster UK is set to close. Prevously a favoured destination for hungover students set for a day of horror flicks, the entire American Pie series in a day and dodgy romcoms, The chain first went into administration back in January and  initially it seemed like the company might survive but administrators Moorfields Corporate Recovery have confirmed that no buyer could be found, and that the remaining 91 Blockbuster shops in the UK would close this weekend, resulting in 808 further job losses.

American Music Theatre, which as the CopyKat had previously reported is being sued for copyright infringement over the unapproved use of material from The Producers, Billy Elliot, Wicked, Jersey Boys, the Lion King and Disney's Mary Poppins in its "Broadway Now & Forever" production, has filed it's defence saying that it has blanket license agreements with the American Society of Composers Authors and Publishers and Broadcast Music Inc. to perform "all allegedly copyrighted works at issue." The theatre also denies it will be violating copyright when it opens "Music of the Night: The Songs of Andrew Lloyd Webber" for a six-month run from April 2014. The Theatre now faces an action, in the Philadelphia federal court, to stop "Broadway Now & Forever" and prevent the upcoming Andrew Lloyd Webber focussed show featuring Cats,Les Miserables and Phantom of the Opera from opening. The Pennsylvanian1,600 capacity theatre on Lincoln Highway East has now said it's productions fall under the fair use doctrine saying "… use of the allegedly copyrighted works was transformative in nature, only an insubstantial portion of each alleged work was used in relation to each work as a whole ...". Among it's other defences, American Music Theatre also claims the plaintiffs were misusing their copyrights and are asking a judge to dismiss the case and have the plaintiffs pay it's legal costs. American Music Theatre has until December 20th to address the initial suit by Disney and other plaintiffs. The Theatre has also now said that specifically for the use of Spider-Man copyrights,  the Theatre has a license agreement to use Spider-Man and that  Stan Lee Media Inc. and not Disney or its Marvel division holds the Spider-Man copyright. But that's another battle.

Italian Communication Authority issues online copyright enforcement regulation (at last)

Following an earlier failed attempt, a (good) number of mixed signals, suggestions of missing competence to adopt a regulation, a public consultation [handily launched in August last], allegations of violating fundamental freedoms, and EU Commission's evaluation (here, here, here, here, here), this morning the Italian Communication Authority (AGCOM) published its Regulation on online copyright enforcement, or Regolamento in materia di tutela del diritto d'autore sulle reti di comunicazione elettronica e procedure attuative as sensi del Decreto Legislativo 9 Aprile 2003, No 70 [by adopting Legislative Decree 9 April 2003, No 70, Italy implemented the Ecommerce Directive]. 

The Regulation, which will enter into force on 31 March 2014, follows AGCOM's own consideration that something must be done at the level of public institutions to contrast digital piracy. The Regulation is aimed at "massive violations", not individual users and P2P activities. As such, the Regulation "does not affect online freedoms at all".

No, he's not a new member of AGCOM ...
But still ...

Similarly to what was recently recommended in France by the Lescure Report (here and here), the Regulation emphasises how more effective enforcement must go hand in hand with the promotion of legal content offers, education and information of consumers [notably younger ones], and adoption of codes of conduct. 

Overall, the Regulation contains a detailed discipline of an innovative [also in the sense that AGCOM not only drafted and adopted the Regulation, but will be also competent to apply it ... Is that L'Etat c'est moi 2.0 or what?] "notice and takedown" procedure that is intended - among other things - to be particularly swift and effective. 

A more detailed analysis of the Regulation will follow shortly on the IPKat. 

The CopyKat - and a yankee doodle dandy to you sir!

A copyright infringement lawsuit against the US Government filed in 2012 by Apptricity, an Irving, Texas-based provider of software solutions has been settled for $50 Million according to the plaintiff’s press release.  The complaint filed in U.S. Court of Federal Claims (Case 1:12-cv-00080-TCW)  claimed that the US Army had improperly installed Apptricity’s software on 98 servers and 9063 devices. According to the company, Apptricity software was used to manage logistics related to troop and supply movements in theatre operations around the world. The complaint states that the US Army originally purchased Apptricity’s software in 2004 for a maximum of 5 servers, 150 stand-alone devices, and for the use of this software by 1,500 named users. The relief requested was for a judgment awarding $224 million in damages. 

Brad & Carrie

A US federal judge has ruled that a "song-theft" lawsuit against country superstars Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood over their duet “Remind Me” can move forward. Judge Aleta Trauger has ruled that songwriter Amy Bowen, who performs as Lizza Connor, had established a plausible claim of copyright infringement by performers Paisley, Underwood and songwriters John Kelley Lovelace and Charles DuBois. According to Bowen’s complaint, she wrote a song called “Remind Me” in 2007 and then went on to perform it during a country music songwriting workshop at which Lovelace and DuBois were advisors. No decision has been made on the substance of the claim, More in the Tennessean here. 

And now for a couple of of non-US updates:

There may be trouble in store for the Musical Society of Nigeria  (MCSN) after the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC) filed a six-count charge alleging the illegal collection of royalties . Justice Ibrahim Buba of the Federal High Court, sitting in Lagos, held that criminal charges filed MCSN over the enforcement of Section 39 of the Copyright Act were in order and that an application to dismiss the claims was "misconceived". On each charge, MCSN was accused of demanding royalties from a particular company and carrying on the businesses of soliciting and granting licences on behalf of copyright owners without the approval of NCC, thereby committing an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 39(4), (5) and (6) of Nigerian Copyright Act Cap C28 LFN 2004.

In Germany the chief executive of a software company has been found liable for copyright infringement after software developed by the company was amended in an open source environment to allow copyright-protected material to be accessed unlawfully. The Register reports that Appwork created "JDownloader2", a download management tool, but allowed any external developers access to the underlying code to test and upgrade the software. A beta-version of the software was adapted in an open source environment which could be used to circumvent an existing encryption tool that prevents the downloading of copyrighted material, and this tool was subsequently made available for download and use commercially. A regional court in Hamburg said it was an infringement of German copyright laws to circumvent the technological protection measure. It ruled that the chief executive of Appwork was liable for that infringement after finding that the company had opened the possibility for open source integration, allowed the infringing version to be labelled as Appwork's own product, and failed to provide any restrictions against the downloading of such unofficial, infringing versions of its software.

TPP Postponed - but maybe soon! The ministers and heads of delegation for the somewhat controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership countries have released the following statement:

"We, the Ministers and Heads of Delegation for Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam, have just completed a four-day Ministerial meeting in Singapore where we have made substantial progress toward completing the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. 

Over the course of this meeting, we identified potential “landing zones” for the majority of key outstanding issues in the text.  We will continue to work with flexibility to finalize these text issues as well as market access issues.  

For all TPP countries, an ambitious, comprehensive and high-standard agreement that achieves the goals established in Honolulu in 2011 is critical for creating jobs and promoting growth, providing opportunity for our citizens and contributing to regional integration and the strengthening of the multilateral trading system. 

Therefore, we have decided to continue our intensive work in the coming weeks toward such an agreement.  We will also further our consultations with stakeholders and engage in our respective political processes.

Following additional work by negotiators, we intend to meet again next month."

Finally, but importantly, the German state of Bavaria has said that it will seek to block any publication of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf when the copyright expires in 2015 - 70 years after Hitler's death. The state owns the copyright in Mein Kampf, The move represents a change of tactics - Bavaria had previously intimated that it would allow publication with "critical commentary". The Bavarian governor's chief of staff, Christine Haderthauer, said Hitler's anti-Semitic memoir amounts to incitement and the government will file a criminal complaint if anyone tries to publish the book in the future. 

Eleonora's blog from January 2012 on British publisher Alberta's Peter McGee plans to sell excerpts from Hitler's Mein Kampf in Germany can be found here http://the1709blog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/copyright-ban-over-hitlers-mein-kampf.html

Australian Law Reform Commission recommends introducing a 'fair use' style exception

The Australian Law Reform Commission had been tasked by the former Labor government with inquiring into the adequacy and appropriateness of Australia's copyright exceptions and statutory licences in the digital environment. Now, after exhaustive issues and discussion papers, and more than 850 public submissions, the Commission has delivered its final report to the new government.

It hasn't yet been tabled, but questions were asked about the report in Parliament last week, and the answers assure us that the ALRC is recommending some big changes. Most significantly, the Attorney-General noted that it has 'recommended the introduction of a flexible fair-use exception as a defence to copyright infringement'. This is a highly significant recommendation, but won't come as a surprise to anyone who has been following the Enquiry. In its discussion paper, the ALRC exhaustively canvassed the available evidence and found:

The ALRC considers that fair use would provide flexibility to respond to changing conditions and would assist innovation. These arguments outlined earlier are not repeated here. In the ALRC’s view, a fair use regime will: employ technology neutral legislative drafting; assist predictability in application; minimise unnecessary obstacles to an efficient market; and reduce transaction costs.  

What else will be in the Report? The Attorney-General gave us a few other clues. In addition to recommending a fair use style exception, the ALRC has also apparently:

recommended retaining and reforming some of the existing specific exemptions and introducing certain new specific exemptions; amending the act to clarify the statutory licensing scheme; limiting the remedies available for copyright infringement to encourage the use of orphaned works; reforming broadcasting exemptions and amending the act to limit contracting-out terms. 

These tantalising hints suggest that the report will be a must-read. We'll let you know when it becomes publicly available - and how the Australian government responds.

PIPCU 'goes global' in pursuit of illegal websites

A press release from the UK’s Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) tells us that the UK's Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit "goes global in its pursuit of illegal websites" with the missive highlighting:

·         A pilot collaboration between PIPCU, the advertising sector and the creative industries 

·         40 national and international websites suspended by domain name registrars

·         Pirate sites exposing consumers to malware and fraudulent scams targeted

The Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) is based at the City of London Police and has been set up to protect UK industries that produce legitimate, high quality, physical goods and online and digital content. The operationally independent unit is initially being funded by the Intellectual Property Office, which is part of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

PIPCU have also released details of their "innovative three month pilot, in collaboration with the creative and advertising industries" designed to disrupt advertising revenues on infringing websites has seen a clear and positive trend, with a reduction in advertising from major household brands. A detailed report looking at 61 websites over the course of the pilot, evidenced as profiting from advertising and operating without licenses from content creators, revealed the following:

·         During the pilot adverts from well-known brands decreased by 12%;

·         Adverts that lead the user to sites with explicit adult content or expose them to malware increased by 39% during the pilot, indicating that site owners may struggle to maintain their revenue streams when adverts from established brands are removed;

·         Almost half (46%) of total ads served to the sites were for unknown or unidentified brands which invited users to click through, often to fraudulent scams.

Operation Creative began in the summer with a partnership between the City of London Police, the UK advertising industry (represented by the Internet Advertising Bureau UK (IAB UK), the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers (ISBA) and the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA)) and rights holders (represented by FACT (Federation Against Copyright Theft), BPI (British Recorded Music Industry), IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) and the PA (Publishers Association)). Rights holders identified the 61 websites that were providing unauthorised access to copyrighted content. Once illegal activity was confirmed by analysts from the City of London Police, a formal ‘prevention and deterrent’ process began to encourage infringing websites to engage with the Police, to correct their behaviour and to begin to operate legitimately.

Details of those failing to respond to this approach were then passed to a group of 60 brands, agencies and advertising technology businesses with a request to stop advertising on these websites.

The next phase of Operation Creative targeted the websites that persisted in offending. PIPCU sent out formal letters to domain name registrars explaining that they were hosting websites facilitating criminal copyright infringement under UK law as well as potentially breaching their terms and conditions. Registrars were then requested to suspend these websites until further notice. These sites are now under an on-going review by PIPCU officers - although its not been without some controversy with one registrar,  Mark Jeftovic, owner of EasyDNS,  pointing out in a blog that there was a "lack of any semblance of due process when it comes to domain name takedowns."

Superintendent Bob Wishart, from PIPCU, said: “Operation Creative is being run by PIPCU and the digital and advertising sectors to really get to grips with a criminal industry that is making substantial profits by providing and actively promoting access to illegally obtained and copyrighted material" adding “Together we have created a process that first and foremost encourages offenders to change their behaviour so they are operating within the law. However, if they refuse to comply we now have the means to persuade businesses to move their advertising to different platforms and, if offending continues, for registrars to suspend the websites."

Kieron Sharp, FACT Director General, said: “FACT is delighted to be working with PIPCU and partners from the advertising, music and publishing sectors to protect UK consumers from websites that promote illegal content and also provide an unsafe platform that puts themselves and their families at risk. Many of these sites have no content filters and contain material that is unsuitable for children."

More on PIPCU here http://www.the1709blog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/reading-writing-and-arrest-matic-as.html

Dilemma Resolved: No Unfair Competition

Last year I posted a short note on the 1709 blog on an appellate decision here in Paris regarding the thorny issue of the protection of TV formats (see here).

Eschewing copyright claims, the plaintiff (Endemol, producer of « Secret Story ») sued its rival (ALJ Productions, producer of « Dilemme » and led by a former Endemol France executive), relying on the law of unfair competition and parasitical conduct.

After scoring an initial success before the Paris Commercial Court, its action was dismissed by the Paris Court of Appeals.  Endemol appealed to the Cour de cassation (Supreme Court), which rejected the appeal on November 26th last (see here).

The Supreme Court approved the lower court’s finding that « the similarities between the two formats were instrically related to the enclosure genre of reality TV and correspond to the usual codes of the profession in this field, such that the alleged elements do not enable any specific identification of the formats claimed by Endemol ». 

The Court also pointedly remarked that ALJ Productions had adduced evidence that it had expended significant sums of money and effort in coming up with its show, which meant that it had not been free-riding on Endemol’s coattails.

While the law of unfair competition and parasitical conduct (grounded in the general tort of negligence under Section 1382 of the French Civil Code) should not be ignored in TV format cases, this case underscores the importance of bringing solid evidence of the distinctive elements of the format that has been allegedly unfairly copied – elements that go beyond what are expected and usual for the relevant genre (scènes à faire in US copyright-speak) - so that one can reasonably speak of a risk of confusion between the two competing formats.  As regards a parastical conduct claim, this requires clear proof of both plaintiff’s effort and expenses in developing its format and defendant’s failure to do so with respect to its own.

Even leading from behind is leadership, as IGOs go for Creative Commons

"New Online Licensing System Makes it Easier to Republish the Work of Intergovernmental Organizations" is the stirring title of a media release from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).  The good news goes like this:

"A new online licensing tool for intergovernmental organizations will make it easier to bring their published material to a wider audience. The unveiling of the Creative Commons 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisation (IGO) License caps a two-year collaboration led by ... WIPO [well done!] with the support of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), in collaboration with several other international organisations.

The licenses make it easier for IGOs to widely distribute their studies, reports, data sets and other material online. Once applied, the licenses give the public permission to republish that content, as long as they follow a few simple rules [which is what the public generally do already even when they don't follow any rules, simple or otherwise ...]. Creative Commons licenses are widely used and understood around the world. ...

“Governments and international organizations have to lead by example when it comes to disseminating information in the digital age [isn't coming in 12 years after Creative Commons got started, and long after it has become part of the regular copyright environment, more a case of "following by example"?],” said OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría. “The OECD is proud to have played a key role in ensuring that the valuable work being done by the IGOs will reach a larger audience and have more impact.” ...

The Creative Commons IGO license will simplify the procedures for re-publishing by setting a single license requirement for a report or dataset once and for all, which remains valid for whoever re-uses the content.

The group of organizations that contributed to the development of the new licenses consisted of, in addition to WIPO: European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN); European Space Agency (ESA); Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO); Inter-American Development Bank (IDB); International Labour Organization (ILO); Organization of American States (OAS); Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD); United Nations (UN); United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO); World Bank; World Health Organization (WHO). The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and the Nordic Council of Ministers participated as observers to the group [Where are the others? Should they be gently encouraged to do likewise, or named and shamed ...?].

The media release then helpfully lists and links the following Creative Commons IGO options:

• Creative Commons / Attribution 3.0 IGO
• Creative Commons / Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO
• Creative Commons / Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 IGO
• Creative Commons / Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 IGO
• Creative Commons / Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO
• Creative Commons / Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 IGO

EC consults on copyright

The European Commission has launched a public consultation as part of its on-going efforts to review and modernise EU copyright rules.

Set in the context of an introduction that says "Over the last two decades, digital technology and the Internet have reshaped the ways in which content is created, distributed, and accessed. New opportunities have materialised for  those that create and produce content (e.g. a film, a novel, a song), for new and existing  distribution platforms, for institutions such as libraries, for activities such as research and for  citizens who now expect to be able to access content – for information, education or  entertainment purposes – regardless of geographical borders"  The Review of the EU Copyright Rules invites stakeholders to share their views on areas identified in the Communication on Content in the Digital Single Market including territoriality in the Single Market, harmonisation, limitations and exceptions to copyright in the digital age; fragmentation of the EU copyright market; and how to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of enforcement while underpinning its legitimacy in the wider context of copyright reform.

The Review says this as a backdrop: "The "Licences for Europe" process has been finalised now. The Commission welcomes the practical solutions stakeholders have put forward in this context and will monitor their progress. Pledges have been made by stakeholders in all four Working Groups (cross border portability of services, user-generated content, audiovisual and film heritage and text and data mining). Taken together, the Commission expects these pledges to be a further step in making the user environment easier in many different situations. The Commission also takes note of  the fact that two groups – user-generated content and text and data mining – did not reach consensus among participating stakeholders on either the problems to be addressed or on the results. The discussions and results of "Licences for Europe" will be also taken into account in the context of the review of the legislative framework."

As part of the review process, the Commission is now launching a public consultation on 

issues identified in the Communication on Content in the Digital Single Market, i.e.: 

"territoriality in the Internal Market, harmonisation, limitations and exceptions to copyright 

in the digital age; fragmentation of the EU copyright market; and how to improve the 

effectiveness and efficiency of enforcement while underpinning its legitimacy in the wider 

context of copyright reform". As highlighted in the October 2013 European Council Conclusions  "Providing digital services and content across the single market requires the 

establishment of a copyright regime for the digital age. The Commission will therefore 

complete its on-going review of the EU copyright framework in spring 2014. It is important to 

modernise Europe's copyright regime and facilitate licensing, while ensuring a high level 

protection of intellectual property rights and taking into account cultural diversity". 

Internal Market and Services Commissioner Michel Barnier said his vision of copyright was of a modern and effective tool that supports creation and innovation, enables access to quality content, including across borders, encourages investment and strengthens cultural diversity saying “Our EU copyright policy must keep up with the times".

So there you have it: Interested parties have till the 5th February 2014 to reply. Eleonora has posted another interesting blog on the IPKat titled A closer look at the public consultation on the review of EU copyright rules and that is well worth a read.

Responses to the review need to be in the format of a pdf file emailed to DG Internal Market and Services and the email address listed is markt-copyright-consultation@ec.europa.eu

More here: http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/consultations/2013/copyright-rules/docs/consultation-document_en.pdf