[MCN-L] IP SIG: New Israeli Copyright Act

[Amalyah Keshet]

For those of you who might be interested, not only does Israel have a brand-new Copyright Act, but it's already been translated into English.  (I don't know which is the more astonishing achievement.) 

As someone who sat through some of the parliamentary committee meetings during the creation of this new Copyright Law, I must say that it came out well, all things considered.  Interestingly, the Act deals with Fair Use by using a two-pronged approach:  the "closed list"  approach, with the addition of the Four Factors cribbed more or less directly from the US Copyright Law.  

Most admirably, the anti-circumvention issue was fended off.  For the time being.

Amalyah Keshet
Head of Image Resources & Copyright Management
The Israel Museum, Jerusalem  akeshet at imj.org.il
Chair, MCN IP SIG   www.mcn.edu
Blog  www.musematic.net 


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Thanks are due to Dr. Michael D. Birnhack, Tel Aviv University, for sending this along:


An unofficial translation of the Israeli Copyright Act 2007 prepared by the Israeli Ministry of Justice is available at http://www.tau.ac.il/law/members/birnhack/IsraeliCopyrightAct2007.pdf
 
Some amendments noted by Dr. Birnhack are:
- s. 11(5) + 15 introduce the right of making available the work;
- s. 19 introduces a fair use (as opposed to a fair dealing) defense;
- s. 24 addresses copying of software;
- s. 26 addresses temporary copying;
- s. 30 has some interesting library and archives' exceptions;
- s. 35 re the first ownership of commissioned works;
- s. 50(b), re the reasonableness in the context of moral rights
 
There are no anti-circumvention rules.