Keyword: Copyright
Is Europe Falling Behind in Data Mining? Copyright’s Impact on Data Mining in Academic Research external link
Abstract
This empirical paper discusses how copyright affects data mining (DM) by academic researchers. Based on bibliometric data, we show that where DM for academic research requires the express consent of rights holders: (1) DM makes up a significantly lower share of total research output; and (2) stronger rule-of-law is associated with less DM research. To our knowledge, this is the first time that an empirical study bears out a significant negative association between copyright protection and innovation.
academic research, Auteursrecht, Copyright, data mining, innovation, Intellectuele eigendom
RIS
Bibtex
Alternative compensation models for large-scale non-commercial online use of works external link
Abstract
This paper briefly discusses an alternative legal model to assure remuneration for non-commercial mass online uses by individuals, covered by the exclusive rights of reproduction and communication/making available to the public in Directive 2001/29/EC. Alternative compensation systems (ACS) are legal mechanisms that forsake the need for direct authorization of end-user acts under the aforementioned rights – downloading, uploading, sharing, modifying –, while simultaneously ensuring compensation to creators (i.e. authors and performers) or all rights holders of works included in the scheme. After providing some background, the paper explains the concept of ACS, outlines the legal models and challenges to its implementation and reports on the results of an ongoing interdisciplinary research project on the legal and socioeconomic feasibility of such systems carried out by the Institute for Information Law (IViR), University of Amsterdam. Chief among the findings are the willingness of users to pay for and participate in an ACS, its quantification and, using the case-study of recorded music, the realization that such a model holds the promise of being welfare increasing.
ACI ADAM, alternative compensation systems, Auteursrecht, collective rights management, content flat-rate, Copydan, Copyright, exceptions and limitations, Infosoc Directive, Intellectuele eigendom, levies, private copy
RIS
Bibtex
Going means trouble and staying makes it double: the value of licensing recorded music online external link
Abstract
This paper discusses whether a copyright compensation system (CCS) for recorded music—endowing private Internet subscribers with the right to download and use works in return for a fee—would be welfare increasing. It reports on the results of a discrete choice experiment conducted with a representative sample of the Dutch population consisting of 4986 participants. Under some conservative assumptions, we find that applied only to recorded music, a mandatory CCS could increase the welfare of rights holders and users in the Netherlands by over €600 million per year (over €35 per capita). This far exceeds current rights holder revenues from the market of recorded music of ca. €144 million per year. A monthly CCS fee of ca. €1.74 as a surcharge on Dutch Internet subscriptions would raise the same amount of revenues to rights holders as the current market for recorded music. With a voluntary CCS, the estimated welfare gains to users and rights holders are even greater for CCS fees below €20 on the user side. A voluntary CCS would also perform better in the long run, as it could retain a greater extent of market coordination. The results of our choice experiment indicate that a well-designed CCS for recorded music would simultaneously make users and rights holders better off. This result holds even if we correct for frequently observed rates of overestimation in contingent valuation studies.
Auteursrecht, collective rights management, compensation systems, Contingent valuation, Copyright, Intellectuele eigendom, Internet, Recorded music
RIS
Bibtex
Joint Copyrights Management by Collecting Societies and Online Platforms: An Economic Analysis external link
Abstract
This paper discusses the effects of technological change on joint (copy)rights management (JRM). The economic literature discusses JRM as a response to relatively high transaction costs in complex markets for copyright works. Based on a formal analysis, we show that JRM reduces the average transaction costs per transaction and the total number of transactions under a broad range of conditions. Throughout the 20th Century, JRM was mostly conducted by copyrights holder collectives. Recently, private for-profit online platforms are taking on core functions of JRM. Our formal analysis yields two essential results: (1) the efficient scale and scope of JRM will increase as copyright works are increasingly traded via digital ICT networks; (2) a change from collective JRM on behalf of rights holders to commercial intermediation weakens the position of rights holders, and will aggravate problems with the private provision of copyright works with public good attributes.
Auteursrecht, collecting societies, Copyright, copyright collectives, digitization, Intellectuele eigendom, online intermediaries
RIS
Bibtex
Deep Pockets, Packets, and Harbours: Never the Three Shall Meet external link
Abstract
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.<br />
Legislation in many jurisdictions regarding Internet service providers’ liability, or more generally the liability of communication intermediaries, usually contains “safe harbour” 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 ‘deep version,’ and the international and national legal and regulatory interventions connected with intellectual property protection and with the correlated liabilities ‘exemptions. 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.
Copyright, Deep Packet Inspection, Intellectual property, Intellectuele eigendom, ISPs, Online liability, Privacy, safe harbours
RIS
Bibtex
Private Copying and Downloading from Unlawful Sources external link
Abstract
Private copying is one of the most contested areas of EU copyright law. This paper surveys that nebulous area and examines the issue of copies made from unlawful sources in light of the ECJ’s ACI Adam decision. After describing the legal background of copyright levies and the facts of the litigation, the paper scrutinizes the Advocate General’s Opinion and the Court’s decision. The latter is analyzed against the history of copyright levies, the ECJ’s extensive case-law on the private copying limitation and Member States’ regulation of unlawful sources. This paper further reflects on the decision’s implications for end-users, rights holders, collective management organizations and manufacturers/importers of levied goods. It concludes that, from a legal and economic standpoint, the decision not only fails to be properly justified, but its consequences will likely diverge from those anticipated by the Court. Most worrisome is the Court’s stance on the three-step test, which it views as a restrictive, rather than enabling, clause. In its interpretation of the test, the decision fails to strike the necessary balance between competing rights and interests. This is due to multiple factors: overreliance on the principle of strict interpretation; failure to consider the fundamental right of privacy; lack of justification of the normative and empirical elements of the test’s second condition; and a disregard for the remuneration element in connection with the test’s third condition. To the contrary, it is argued that a flexible construction of the three-step test is more suited to the Infosoc Directive’s balancing aims.
Links
ACI ADAM, alternative compensation systems, Auteursrecht, collective rights management, content flat-rate, Copyright, exceptions and limitations, Information Influx Conference, Infosoc Directive, Intellectuele eigendom, IViR, levies, private copy
RIS
Bibtex
Legalizing File-Sharing: An Idea Whose Time Has Come – Or Gone? Report from the Information Influx Conference 2014 external link
Abstract
On 2-4 July 2014 Information Influx, the 25th anniversary conference of the Institute for Information Law (IViR) was held in Amsterdam. Integrated in the conference, on Friday, 4 July a panel entitled “Legalizing file-sharing: an idea whose time has come – or gone?” met.<br />
The panel’s moderator was Professor Bernt Hugenholtz (University of Amsterdam, IViR) and the panelists were scholars with groundbreaking research on the topic for the past decade: Professor Neil Netanel (University of California, Los Angeles), Professor Alexander Peukert (University of Frankfurt), Dr. Philippe Aigrain (La Quadrature du Net), Professor Séverine Dusollier (SciencesPo./École de droit).<br />
The panel was divided into four parts, which this report reflects. First, the moderator introduced the topic and the panelists. Second, IViR member Mr. Balázs Bodó offered a short presentation of an ongoing research project on the topic of debate. Third, each panelist commented on the topic from different perspectives. The panel discussion was then opened for comments from the audience and responses from the panel.
ACI ADAM, alternative compensation systems, Auteursrecht, collective rights management, content flat-rate, Copyright, exceptions and limitations, Information Influx Conference, Infosoc Directive, Intellectuele eigendom, IViR, levies, private copy
RIS
Bibtex
Safe to be open: Study on the protection of research data and recommendations for access and usage external link
Harmonizing European Copyright Law: The Challenges of Better Lawmaking external link
Abstract
Nobody likes today’s copyright law. Widespread unauthorized use of copyright material proliferates with impunity, while citizens and users protest that intrusive copyright and related rights law stifle cultural expression. Equipment manufacturers and intermediaries complain about yet more ’security’ features that complicate their products and services and encumber marketing, while content owners desperately want enforcement to work. And of course it is crucial that whatever regulatory instruments come into play must not age prematurely in Internet time. The European Union faces the daunting challenge of articulating coherent copyright policies that satisfy these contradictory multiple demands. Yet the legal framework must conform to the European Union’s remit of fostering economic growth in a common market, while respecting the national traditions of its still growing family of Member States. Clearly, an extraordinary balancing act is called for if justice is to be done to all of the private and public interests affected. So how has the European acquis communautaire scored on these issues so far? In this groundbreaking study the Institute for Information Law of the University of Amsterdam brings its extensive academic expertise to bear on this question. The authors scrutinize the present law as laid down in the seven copyright and related rights directives, against the background of the relevant international standards of the Berne Convention, the TRIPs agreement, and the WIPO Internet Treaties. They map out in detail the degree to which certain areas of copyright have been harmonized as they expose the gaps and inconsistencies in the acquis and the urgent unresolved issues that persist. They identify the EU’s ambitions in relation to its present and future competences (following the Lisbon Reform) to regulate copyright, and to its Better Regulation agenda. Following a comprehensive analysis of almost two decades of regulatory intervention, they move on to the salient current trends that point toward a more coherent and balanced European copyright law.
Copyright, Kluwer Information Law Series