From Analogue to Digital: Reconsidering Copyright And The Exclusive Rights of Authors In An Era Of Technological Change

After the First Industrial Revolution, a series of technologies challenged copyright law and pushed the law to accommodate, expand, and develop. Compared with analogue technologies, digital technologies present an even greater challenge to copyright law, which is under pressure to adapt to the rapid changes in the technologies. When digital technology was in its infancy, analogue copyright law was extended to the digital realm and became known as digital copyright law. ‘Digital copyright law’, however, is no more than a tailoring, tinkering and twisting of analogue copyright law, which fits poorly into the new digital environment. In colloquial terms, it is fitting the square digital copyright law into a round digital hole. The digital world is an entirely new environment and digital technology is advancing at an unprecedented rate. There is a need for a new approach to digital copyright law that could accommodate digital technologies for disseminating copyright works in a more realistic manner than the current approach of simply adapting old analogue concepts. Current digital copyright law—a phrase that broadly refers to any provision or regulation dealing with copyright issues in the digital environment—is not consistent with technological developments. Digital technologies continually expand access to digital copyright works, whereas current digital copyright law significantly restricts such access. The approach suggested in this thesis allows content users to freely access digital copyright works while ensuring copyright holders’ adequate remuneration from the works. It is inspired by an existing business model under which users can freely replicate and disseminate (or access) digital copyright works but cannot freely use the works. To accommodate this model, the thesis suggests that current digital copyright law needs to be overhauled