The Global Expert Network on Copyright User Rights will be holding its annual meetings and symposium from June 10-15 at American University Washington College of Law.

This year's User Rights Symposium will feature public presentations of finished or published research, feedback sessions for works-in-progress, and research planning discussions with policy advocates to set an agenda to guide investments in future scholarship.

The topic of the Symposium will be Setting a Scholarship Agenda on Copyright and the Right to Research. Subtopics will include: copyright limitations and exceptions (L&E) design; protection of L&E from contract override; human rights litigation strategies; compulsory, extended collective licenses, and fair remuneration; author rights to retention, reversion and secondary publication; empirical evidence of impact.

Propose a topic for a presentation to join this year’s symposium

About the Global Network on Copyright User Rights

The Network was formed in 2011 by a group of leading copyright academics from around the world. The objective of the Network was originally framed in the Washington Declaration on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest, which called for “discussion of employing ‘open-ended’ limitations in national copyright legislation, in addition to specific exceptions.”

The work of the Network focuses on the publication of research and provision of technical assistance to explain how adopting more open, flexible and general user rights – both by adopting fair use-like open, flexible, general provisions, and by increasing the openness and flexibility of specific (non-general) exceptions – can promote social and economic interests.

In 2018, the network began working with advocates at WIPO on a proposed Treaty on Education and Research Activities (TERA).