Locking up the Bridge on the Digital Divide - A Consideration of the Global Impact of the U.S. Anti-Circumvention Measures for the Participation of Developing Countries in the Digital Economy Symposium Review: The Digital Challenge to Copyright Law (original) (raw)
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Digital technologies and copyright: international trends and implications for developing countries
Digital Pathways at Oxford Paper Series; no. 1. Oxford, United Kingdom, 2020
This paper argues that recent policy developments and negotiations are expanding copyright protection related to digital technologies, as a result of demands from multinational industries. It draws on literature and interviews with civil society stakeholders to question whether this expansion reflects the economic interests of developing nations or whether they could deepen geopolitical inequalities. It also considers how, in a connected world, policymaking in one country or region that holds economic power in the digital environment can be enforced by others, and how the effects of this might be specially felt in developing nations.
Copyrights and Copyduties - Importance of the Public Domain for Developing Countries
Developing countries need to rethink their copyright policy in light of the abundant information flows across the world. A nation's copyright policy is a pivotal source determining the forms of control that can be exercised over access to published information. The thrust for a global regime of trade related intellectual property rights (TRIPS), which includes copyright, was initiated by the United States of America in the eighth Uruguay round of GATT talks due to intense lobbying from its domestic knowledge based industries and with unequivocal support from Europe and Japan. The inclusion of TRIPS within the subsequent WTO framework has gone a long way in aligning and harmonizing intellectual property of most WTO member states with the US viewpoint. New digital technology, enabled by the Internet, is imposing a fresh challenge to conventional copyright policy. Large copyright owning organizations argue that digital media allows for an increasing possibility for piracy. Providing higher protection standards is therefore necessary. This argument led the US lawmakers into signing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. Though a US law it has trans-national implications. A crucial dimension to the DMCA Act, beyond the US domestic horizon, is to explore how such a new copyright act will have impact on other countries, particularly developing ones. Protecting access to digital information at one end of the world through new copyright acts will have crucial consequence for the rest of the world.
University of Washington, School of law. Seattle, 2008
SHIELD………………………………………….31 VI. TPM IN EUROPEAN UNION AND OTHER JURISPRUDENCE…………….35 a. background……………………………………………………………………...35 b.balance in EU…………………………………………………………………....37 c. Normative commitment………………………………………………………...39 d. France…………………………………………………………………………..41 e.United Kingdom…………………………………………………………………42 f.Austrialia…………………………………………………………………………43 g.Malaysia………………………………………………………………………….45 VII. CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………46 PART I INTRODUCTION. The importance of balancing interests in the light of technological advancement is manifest in Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) legislative history. Congress attempted to balance competing interests and endeavored to specify with as much clarity as possible, how the rights against anti-circumvention would be qualified to maintain the balance between the interests of content creators' and information users.[1]The interests that the DMCA set out to balance resulted in development of shields(defensive devices to protect legal rights) by these interest to enhance their position in the copyright regime. The advent of the digital age changed the protection and enforcement landscape of copyrights not just in the United States but globally. This paper will principally focus on the United States attempt to address the challenges of copyright protection in the digital technology age. In the United States the enactment of the DMCA[2] was a deliberate attempt to address the perceived inadequacies of the pre-existing Copyright Act[3] to prevail in the enforcement of copyright. The Copyright Act has been embedded with principles that balance the rights of the copyright owner against the public's interest in having appropriate access to innovative works[4].The interest of content creators and information users had to be balanced. The objective of copyright as expressed in the Constitution[5] demanded that the interest of copyright owners and users be taken into consideration in the DMCA environment. The courts are in the forefront of balancing these interests. We will review how the courts have attempted to achieve a balance. This paper is divided into seven parts. In part I the historical background of the DMCA will be analyzed. The position of the pre-DMCA will be discussed and the influence of the pre-DMCA environment on the DMCA will be reviewed. In part II, a discussion of the earlier and current copyright regime and the earlier cases that influenced the current regime. In part III, TPM will be reviewed through the cases. In part IV how the legislature attempts to balance the interests within the copyright regime is analyzed. In part V,the concept of copyright misuse as a shield in the copyright regime is analyzed. In part VI, a review of the position of EU and other non EU jurisprudence is conducted. An overview and comparative analysis will be conducted. Part VII will conclude with likely suggestions and solutions, the current position of the interests and other emerging interests. Suggestions will be offered on the way forward in view of new business models that are emerging.
International copyright and the challenges of digital technology
2002
Digital technology is challenging traditional copyright principles. Despite suggestions from a number of commentators that copyright cannot survive the challenge, this thesis aims to demonstrate that copyright can evolve and adapt rather than face elimination. This hypothesis is tested and illustrated by means of an examination of law in conjunction with technology, and by means of concrete examples. Analysis of the author's position in the face of digital technology requires firstly, an investigation of the way in which the existence and exercise of the author's copyright itself is affected by such technology, and secondly, an examination of how the author's standing in relation to dissemination of works generally is concerned (e.g. as regards freedom of speech). It is with the first of these aspects that this thesis is mainly concerned, although, for the sake of a more comprehensive view, some considerations on the second aspect are also advanced. This thesis examines challenges raised in the copyright field by digital technology and the consequential problems in relation to classification of subject matter, identification of authors, fixation and reproduction, the criterion of originality, the meaning of publication, recognition of moral rights, recognition of economic rights, exceptions and limitations, liability of service providers, authenticity of works, infringement, feasibility of enforcement and conflict of laws. Broader issues relating to Government and private control of access to the new media are also analysed.
A New Copyright Order: Why National Courts Should Create Global Norms
University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 2000
The need to develop international solutions, and hence to incorporate global values and policies in the lawmaking process, is scarcely unique to copyright law. But the effect of digital technology upon the creation, delivery, and use of copyrighted works has made such internationalization appear more urgent in copyright than in other areas of law. Indeed, it 1 See, e.g., BRUCE A. LEHMAN, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND THE NATIONAL INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE: THE REPORT OF THE WORKING GROUP ON INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS 10, 117-19, 139 (1995) [hereinafter WHITE PAPER] (emphasizing that the development of intellectual property rules in the digital environment requires attention to protection internationally); Proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on the Harmonization of Certain Aspects of Copyright and Related Rights in the Information Society, COM(97)628 final at 14 (noting that the implementation of recent treaty obligations was the "principal foundation" of the Commission's proposals for adaptation of copyright law to the digital age, and recognizing that the proposed reforms could not afford to focus solely on domestic internal market objectives); Dan L. Burk, Transborder Intellectual Property Issues on the Electronic Frontier, 6 STAN. L. & POL'Y REV. 9, 15 (1994) (discussing the alternative means by which to address the transborder nature of information flow); Gillian Davies,
Copyright and Anti-Circumvention: Growing Pains in a Digital Millennium
2010
Halfway through the first year of the new millennium -or halfway through the last year of the old one, depending on whom you ask -commentators and observers of all stripes seem to have settled conclusively that we are standing at the dawn of the 'information age'. Articles reflecting on the nature of new technology in this so-called 'digital millennium' are becoming as ubiquitous as the phenomena they describe. 1 The need to respond to perceived challenges to established law, to adapt and take new approaches to satisfy the demands of a society based on information technology, are frequently deliberated.