10,005 research outputs found
Business models to support content commons
The application of conventional, 'scarce resource' economics to content has been
mistaken and harmful. More appropriate forms of economic analysis highlight the
critical role that accessibility to information plays in the process of innovation.
Meanwhile, down at the micro-economic level, there is an all-too-common perception
that open content approaches are unsustainable and bad for business, and reflect
naĂŻve idealism on the part of their proponents. This paper identifies a range of
suitable business models, and thereby demonstrates that the content commons is
sustainable and appropriate for profit-oriented business enterprises
Music in electronic markets: an empirical study
Music plays an important, and sometimes overlooked part in the transformation of communication and distribution channels. With a global market volume exceeding US$40 billion, music is not only one of the primary entertainment goods in its own right. Since music is easily personalized and transmitted, it also permeates many other services across cultural borders, anticipating social and economic trends. This article presents one of the first detailed empirical studies on the impact of internet technologies on a specific industry. Drawing on more than 100 interviews conducted between 1996 and 2000 with multinational and independent music companies in 10 markets, strategies of the major players, current business models, future scenarios and regulatory responses to the online distribution of music files are identified and evaluated. The data suggest that changes in the music industry will indeed be far-reaching, but disintermediation is not the likely outcome
Study of Fundamental Rights Limitations for Online Enforcement through Self-Regulation
The use of self-regulatory or privatized enforcement measures in the online environment can
give rise to various legal issues that affect the fundamental rights of internet users. First,
privatized enforcement by internet services, without state involvement, can interfere with the
effective exercise of fundamental rights by internet users. Such interference may, on occasion,
be disproportionate, but there are legal complexities involved in determining the precise
circumstances in which this is the case. This is because, for instance, the private entities can
themselves claim protection under the fundamental rights framework (e.g. the protection of
property and the freedom to conduct business).
Second, the role of public authorities in the development of self-regulation in view of certain
public policy objectives can become problematic, but has to be carefully assessed. The
fundamental rights framework puts limitations on government regulation that interferes with
fundamental rights. Essentially, such limitations involve the (negative) obligation for States
not to interfere with fundamental rights. Interferences have to be prescribed by law, pursue a
legitimate aim and be necessary in a democratic society. At the same time, however, States
are also under the (positive) obligation to take active measures in order to ensure the effective
exercise of fundamental rights. In other words, States must do more than simply refrain from
interference. These positive obligations are of specific interest in the context of private
ordering impact on fundamental rights, but tend to be abstract and hard to operationalize in
specific legal constellations.
This studyâs central research question is: What legal limitations follow from the fundamental
rights framework for self-regulation and privatized enforcement online?
It examines the circumstances in which State responsibility can be engaged as a result of selfregulation
or privatized enforcement online. Part I of the study provides an overview and
analysis of the relevant elements in the European and international fundamental rights
framework that place limitations on privatized enforcement. Part II gives an assessment of
specific instances of self-regulation or other instances of privatized enforcement in light of
these elements
Hail to the thief: a tribute to Kazaa
THIS PAPER CONSIDERS THE ONGOING LITIGATION against the peer-to-peer network KaZaA. Record
companies and Hollywood studios have faced jurisdictional and legal problems in suing this network
for copyright infringement. As Wired Magazine observes: âThe servers are in Denmark. The software
is in Estonia. The domain is registered Down Under, the corporation on a tiny island in the South Pacific.
The usersâ60 million of themâare everywhere around the world.â In frustration, copyright owners
have launched copyright actions against intermediariesâlike against Internet Service Providers such as
Verizon. They have also embarked on filing suits against individual users of file-sharing programs. In
addition, copyright owners have called for domestic- and international-law reform with respect to digital
copyright. The Senate Committee on Government Affairs of the United States Congress has
reviewed the controversial use of subpoenas in suits against users of file-sharing peer-to-peer networks.
The United States has encouraged other countries to adopt provisions of the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act 1998 in bilateral and regional free-trade agreements
Deep pockets, packets, and harbours
Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) is a set of methodologies used for the analysis of data flow over the Internet. It is the intention of this paper to describe technical details of this issue and to show that by using DPI technologies it is possible to understand the content of Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol communications. This communications can carry public available content, private users information, legitimate copyrighted works, as well as infringing copyrighted works.
Legislation in many jurisdictions regarding Internet service providersâ liability, or more generally the liability of communication intermediaries, usually contains âsafe harbourâ provisions. The World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty of 1996 has a short but significant provision excluding liability for suppliers of physical facilities. The provision is aimed at communication to the public and the facilitation of physical means. Its extensive interpretation to cases of contributory or vicarious liability, in absence of specific national implementation, can prove problematic. Two of the most relevant legislative interventions in the field, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the European Directive on Electronic Commerce, regulate extensively the field of intermediary liability. This paper looks at the relationship between existing packet inspection technologies, especially the âdeep version,â and the international and national legal and regulatory interventions connected with intellectual property protection and with the correlated liabilities âexemptions. In analyzing the referred two main statutes, we will take a comparative look at similar interventions in Australia and Canada that can offer some interesting elements of reflection
Fair Use and the Fairer Sex: Gender, Feminism, and Copyright Law
Copyright laws are written and enforced to help certain groups of people assert and retain control over the resources generated by creative productivity. Because those people are predominantly male, the copyright infrastructure plays a role, largely unexamined by legal scholars, in helping to sustain the material and economic inequality between women and men. This essay considers some of the ways in which gender issues and copyright laws intersect, proposes a feminist critique of the copyright legal regime which advocates low levels of copyright protections, and asserts the importance of considering the social and economic disparities between women and men when evaluating the impacts and performance of intellectual property laws
Collective Consuming: Consumers as Subcontractors on Electronic Markets
In this article, contrary to popular belief, it is argued on the basis of Transaction Cost
Economics that consumers will become dependent subcontractors on electronic markets.
Consumers invest time and effort building up a relation with a producer or e-tailer; an
investment that is idiosyncratic. The producer or e-tailer only needs to invest in generic assets
that enable him to automate the process of collecting and processing customer information she
needs to differentiate products and discriminate prices. As subcontractors consumers face high
switching costs and are thus dependent on producers or e-tailers. Virtual communities of
consumers that organize countervailing power will not mitigate this tendency
Value chain envy: explaining new entry and vertical integration in popular music
The desirability of establishing a value chain at a particular stage in a value system can be considered to depend on the relation between the value that can be created and the value that can be captured at that particular stage. Value chain envy motivates firms to invade the more desirable stages of the value system, either through new entry or vertical integration. The feasibility of establishing a value chain, however, can be considered to depend on the efficacy of the means to value protection at that particular stage. The concepts of value creation, capture, and protection within value systems are employed to analyze recent developments in the recorded music industries, particularly those affecting the stage of music publishing. Over the course of the 20th century the value created at the stage of music publishing diminished steadily, while the value captured remained high, thereby giving rise to value chain envy. On the basis of the proposed theoretical framework one could expect these developments to trigger strategic responses to remedy this value chain envy. However, most actors, except the major record companies, were unable to do so until new information communication technologies were introduced. Industry level data do indeed corroborate that vertical integration by major record companies was followed, from the mid-1990âs onwards, by a significant increase in the prevalence rate of newly founded SMEs in the music publishing industry in the Netherlands. These newly founded firms are testimony to new entry or vertical integration by musician-entrepreneurs, thereby providing support for the advanced arguments.
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