Non-display uses of copyright works: Google Books and beyond

Copyright @ 2011 The AuthorsWith the advent of mass digitisation projects, such as the Google Book Search, a peculiar shift has occurred in the way that copyright works are dealt with. Contrary to what has so far been the case, works are turned into machine-readable data to be automatically processed for various purposes without the expression of works being displayed to the public. In the Google Book Settlement Agreement, this new kind of uses is referred to as “non-display uses” of digital works. The legitimacy of these uses has not yet been tested by Courts and does not comfortably fit in the current copyright doctrine, plainly because the works are not used as works but as something else, namely as data. Since non-display uses may prove to be a very lucrative market in the near future, with the potential to affect the way people use copyright works, we examine non-display uses under the prism of copyright principles to determine the boundaries of their legitimacy. Through this examination, we provide a categorisation of the activities carried out under the heading of “non-display uses”, we examine their lawfulness under the current copyright doctrine and approach the phenomenon from the spectrum of data protection law as could apply, by analogy, to the use of copyright works as processable data

Re-crafting a Public Domain

There is a public domain, but it is small, relative to its history, and it is shrinking. Digital technology will only speed its decline. And because most are oblivious to the particular threat that digital technology poses for the public domain, the prospects for reversing this trend are not promising. On the present path, the idea of the public domain will be as familiar to our children as the intergovernmental tax immunity doctrine is to our students. This loss of the public domain, properly understood, will be a profound loss for freedom and culture, or more precisely, free culture. It will also be persistent. For the mechanisms that will effect the elimination of this domain are not merely legal doctrines. The mechanisms are machines protected by the most powerful (if delicate) technologies of control that man has devised. My aim in this essay is to frame a way of talking about this public domain, and to map a strategy for its defense. The defense will come both from rebuilding the public domain, properly understood, and from crafting an effective public domain-meaning a free space that functions as a public domain, even though the resources that constitute it are not properly within the public domain

Music 2025 : The Music Data Dilemma: issues facing the music industry in improving data management

© Crown Copyright 2019Music 2025ʼ investigates the infrastructure issues around the management of digital data in an increasingly stream driven industry. The findings are the culmination of over 50 interviews with high profile music industry representatives across the sector and reflects key issues as well as areas of consensus and contrasting views. The findings reveal whilst there are great examples of data initiatives across the value chain, there are opportunities to improve efficiency and interoperability

Digital licence agreements and their effects on acquisitions and academic library users

The article examines the origin of print media copyright law and the fair dealing exemptions. It analyses whether the globally accepted assumptions that the print media fair dealing exemption is appropriate in the digital environment notwithstanding that corporate rights holders of online databases have introduced licences to govern the use of digital content. The article discusses the effects on acquisitions and academic library users of incorporating the print media fair dealing exemption in the digital licensing agreements

Prinsip Moral Sebagai Klaim Pada Hak Cipta Dan Hak Untuk Dilupakan (Right To Be Forgotten)

AbstractIn this current digital era, the issue how to protect private-personal electronic or digital data creates the need for the recognition of a new legal right (right to be forgotten/right to delete). Legal recognition of this right must be balanced with the duty of internet service provider to control and monitor the dispersion of negative content (resulting in copyright infringements, infringements of the sanctity of personal-private data, etc.).  With the amendment of Law No. 11 of 2008 re. Electronic Information and Transactions, it becomes appropriate to discuss the right to be forgotten in terms of moral principles. The existence of this moral right is reflected in the legal protection of copyright as well as protection of private-personal data.  The main argument here is that moral principle or right as part of natural law should be used to explain the existence and importance of the right to be forgotten

Regulation by Software

Software is neither law nor architecture. It is its own modality of regulation. This Note builds on Larry Lessig’s famous formulation that “code is law” to argue that Lessig was wrong to equate computer software with physical architecture. Although software resembles both law and architecture in its power to constrain behavior, it has features that distinguish it from both. The Note identifies four relevant attributes of software: It is ruleish, potentially nontransparent, impossible to ignore, and vulnerable to sudden failure. By assessing the impact of these characteristics in a given context, one can decide whether software is a good or a bad choice to solve a regulatory problem. Part I situates software within Lessig’s theory of different and complementary modalities of regulation that constrain individuals. In Code, he postulates four such modalities: law, social norms, markets, and physical architecture. He then argues that software is a subspecies of physical architecture as a modality. I argue instead that three basic characteristics of software establish it as a distinct modality that should not be conflated with any of the others: First, software is automated. Once set in motion by a programmer, a computer program makes its determinations mechanically, without further human intervention. Second, software is immediate. Rather than relying on sanctions imposed after the fact to enforce its rules, it simply prevents the forbidden behavior from occurring. Third, software is plastic. Programmers can implement almost any system they can imagine and describe precisely. Software is like physical architecture and unlike law in being automated and immediate. However, plasticity is more characteristic of legal systems than of architectural ones. Software’s plasticity interacts with its automation and its immediacy to produce consequences that set it apart from both law and physical architecture. In Part II, I turn to these distinctive consequences. There are four recurring and predictable patterns present in any regulation by software: First, along the traditional continuum between rules and standards, software lies at the extreme rule-bound end. Second, software can regulate without transparency. Frequently, those regulated by software may have no reasonable way to determine the overall shape of the line between prohibited and permitted behavior. Third, software rules cannot be ignored. Parties facing a decision made by software can, at best, take steps to undo what software has wrought. Fourth, software is more fragile than other systems of regulation. Hackers can turn its plasticity against it, and its automated operation means that unintended consequences are shielded from human review. Part III applies this analysis to two case studies. It predicts that software is a good way to manage negotiations and transactions in online marketplaces such as online auction sites and electronic stock exchanges. On the other hand, it predicts several pitfalls for the use of software to restrict the distribution of digital media

The International Copyright Problem and Durable Solutions

The calls for copyright reform at both the national and international level are growing louder. Many authors, owners, distributors, users, and consumers are dissatisfied with the current regime, but solutions are not easy to find. Existing rules are inadequate to deal with copyright in the digital world and partial solutions are not likely to be durable. The problems of copyright are not confined to one jurisdiction. Just as the creation and dissemination of copyright works are global, copyright\u27s legal problems are an international problem. Existing international rules alone cannot provide the solution to this policy debate, but they do have a role. This Article analyzes the international framework and determines that improved interpretation of the international rules plays an important role. The Article determines that effective interpretation of international agreements in order to achieve a broad consistency about the object and purpose of copyright law can make a substantive contribution to creating a durable solution to the international copyright problem

Fragmented Copyright, Fragmented Management: Proposals to Defrag Copyright Management

The collective management of copyright in Canada was conceived as a solution to alleviate the problem of inefficiency of individual rights management. Creators could not license, collect and enforce copyright efficiently on an individual basis. Requiring users to obtain permission from individual copyright holders for the use of a work was equally inefficient. Collectives, therefore, emerged to facilitate the clearance of rights between creators and users. Even with the facilitation of collectives in the process, clearing rights remains an inherently difficult and convoluted process. This is especially so in the age of the Internet where clearing rights for multimedia products presents new unprecedented challenges. As a result of an infelicitous legal evolution and the multiplication of collectives, fragmentation of copyright, and the way in which it is used and enforced, has occurred. This paper addresses the problems associated with fragmentation and offers solutions to ‘‘defrag’’ the collective management of copyright in Canada. La gestion collective du droit d’auteur au Canada était à l\u27origine une solution apportée à l\u27inefficacité de la gestion individuelle des droits. Les créateurs n’étaient pas en mesure d’octroyer des licences, de percevoir et de mettre en œuvre leur droit d’auteur de façon individuelle. Il était tout aussi inefficace d’exiger des utilisateurs d’œuvres qu’ils obtiennent des licences de chaque ayant droit individuel. Les sociétés de gestion qui ont été mises sur pied devaient faciliter la gestion des rapports entre ayants droit et utilisateurs. Mais malgré le rôle joué par ces sociétés de gestion, l’obtention de autorisation nécessaires à l’exploitation d’une œuvre protégée reste un processus long et alambiqué. Cela est particulière ment vrai depuis l’arrivée d’Internet, qui pose des défis sans précédents dans ce domaine. Le résultat de l’évolution parfois mal orientée de la législation applicable et la création de multiples sociétés de gestion ont mené à un fractionnement du droit d’auteur et de sa gestion. Cet article se penche sur le problème du fractionnement et propose des solutions devant permettre de défragmenter la gestion collective du droit d’auteur. The main problem with the collective management of copyright in Canada is fragmentation. Fragmentation is a term we use in this paper to refer to the lack of cohesion, standardization, and, to a certain extent, effective organization of both copyright law and collective management per se. Fragmentation occurs on many different levels: rights stemming from the law recognising several economic rights (reproduction, communication to the public, adaptation, rental, etc.); within the market structure; within licensing practices; within a repertory of works; within different markets (language, territory); and through the interoperability of rights clearance systems. Fragmentation impacts directly on all affected parties whether they are rightsholders, users of copyright works, or regulatory authorities that oversee the process. The structure of the paper is as follows: first, it will explore the history of collective management societies (sometimes referred to simply as ‘‘collectives’’); second, focus on the origin of collective management societies and copyright law in Canada; third, look at the development of technologies and their intersection with copyright law and its management; fourth, examine the origins of fragmentation and the various problems that ensue from the situation; and fifth, look to potential solutions to alleviate some of the concerns and challenges posed by fragmentation