Banning Copyright Infringers from the Internet : a View from Europe
Professor Jacques de Werra
Tuesday, October 7, 12:30PM
Berkman Conference Room, 23 Everett St, 2nd Floor, Cambridge, MA
At a time when the French legislative authorities are about to vote (this fall) on a new copyright regulation under which the internet access of copyright infringers can be shut down while other regulators in Europe (at the EU or at the national level) are debating about the constitutionality and the fairness of such sanction, it appears interesting to present and to discuss the pros and cons of this controversial approach as well as the challenges that it raises. The talk shall be an occasion to open a transatlantic debate on this issue knowing that such a sanction has been indirectly implemented under US copyright law (§ 512 DMCA).
About Jacques de Werra
Jacques de Werra teaches intellectual property law and contract law at the law school of the University of Geneva. He authored a doctoral thesis on the topic of the right of integrity under Swiss and comparative copyright laws which he finished as a visiting scholar at the Max-Planck Institute for Intellectual Property, Competition and Tax Law in Munich (in 1996). He subsequently practiced law in Switzerland, before coming to the US where he obtained an LL.M. degree at Columbia Law School (2001) and was admitted to the New York bar (2002). He joined the Law School of Geneva University as a full time faculty in 2006 after having practised intellectual property law and business law in Switzerland and in New York. He is a co-director of the Geneva Art-Law Center (www.art-law.org) and also a WIPO panelist for domain name disputes. His research interests focus on the present and upcoming challenges which are faced by intellectual property law (in particular – in the recent times - the legal protection of traditional knowledge and the fight against biopiracy, trademark cybersquatting and the private international law aspects of intellectual property law in the context of the cross-border exchange of trade secrets), and by the legal regulation of technology related areas (such as the law of software contracts).