Copyright Term Reversion and the “Use-It-Or-Lose-It” Principle

This brief article makes an argument for the use of the legal device of term reversion, as a means for bringing unexploited works back into use, and mitigating the undesirable effects of the excessive term of copyright protection. It proposes to legislate a simple rule that copyright interests will be transferable only for an initial term of 10 years, after which they will revert to the creator. If carefully implemented, the rule is compatible with the current constraints of international and EU law. By stimulating artist‐led innovation, term reversion may also improve the financial position of creators

Powers to disconnect internet users should not be lightly delegated. (Letter)

From Prof Martin Kretschmer. Sir, Peter Mandelson’s digital economy bill (report, November 20) contains major legislative innovations in the treatment of copyright law. For the first time, a regulatory rather than a property rights approach is used, both for enforcement and access issues in the digital environment. Under the traditional approach, the state grants copyright as a property right but then leaves transaction and enforcement to private parties. Under the regulatory approach (commonly used for utilities) market access, price control and contractual supervision remain prevalent long after a franchise has been awarded. The digital economy bill gives the communications regulator Ofcom and civil servants (under delegated powers to the secretary of state) an unprecedented role in copyright law, in determining whether copyright infringers will be subject to internet speed limits or even disconnection, and in regulating the use of copyright works whose owners cannot be traced (so-called “orphan works”). This is a significant conceptual innovation, and a welcome recognition that intellectual property rights shape the infrastructure of a knowledge-based society. If a regulatory approach is used, however, it is imperative to create a truly independent basis for regulation, using verifiable evidence. Here, the record of the New Labour government is dismal. Certain sectors of the entertainment industry appear to have privileged access to ministers. This has led to proposals for tackling downloads and file-sharing that affect fundamental rights, and are likely to have anti-innovative consequences (for example in driving traffic further underground, throttling legitimate streaming services, and imposing costs on internet service providers). Powers to disconnect internet users should not be lightly delegated, certainly not in the sweeping manner of the digital economy bill that will allow future ministers to change the scope of copyright law without proper scrutiny. Martin Kretschmer, Professor of Information Jurisprudence, Director, Centre for Intellectual Property Policy and Management, The Business School, Bournemouth University, U

Access and reward in the information society: regulating the collective management of copyright

Copyright Collecting Societies have proliferated, with more than 150 organisations now collecting and distributing licensing fees for rights in music, literary, audio-visual and graphic works within the European Union. From the perspective of Competition Law, collecting societies may be viewed as price-fixing cartels under Art. 81 EC, and as vulnerable to challenges under Art. 82 EC (i.e. abusing a dominant position as the sole provider of a management infrastructure to right holders, and as the only supplier of licences to copyright users). Yet, collective administration of copyright has important policy benefits: (i) From a user perspective, collecting societies may offer a single point licence providing easy and wide access to copyright protected contents. This can be a solution to innovation issues in an information society where major right holders otherwise may dictate problematic terms. (ii) Creators at the margins of commercial viability have access to a mechanism of collective bargaining against major rights exploiters, such as publishers, record labels and broadcasters. This may support a culturally diverse society. This article develops principles for regulating the collective management of copyrights from a critique of EC competition jurisprudence

Piracy in the licensing economy

Invitation to a workshop of papers to be published in a special issue of "Prometheus", 'the journal for issues in technological change, innovation, information economics, communication and science policy" (Carfax/Taylor & Francis

Introduction: Legal Form and Cultural Symbol – Music, Copyright and Information Studies

Writers in information and communication studies often assume the stability of objects under investigation: network nodes, databases, information. Legal writers in the intellectual property tradition often assume that cultural artefacts exist as objects prior to being governed by copyright law. Both assumptions are fallacious. This introduction conceptualises the relationship of legal form and cultural symbol. Starting from an understanding of copyright law as part of systems of production (in the sense of Peterson 1976), it is argued that copyright law constructs the artefacts it seeks to regulate as objects that can be bought and sold. In doing so, the legal and aesthetic logic of cultural symbols may clash, as in the case of digital music (the central focus of this special issue)

Abstraction and registration: conceptual innovations and supply effects in Prussian and British Copyright (1820-50)

It is one of the orthodoxies of modern copyright law that the enjoyment and the exercise of the rights granted “shall not be subject to any formality” (Berne Convention 1886, Berlin revision 1908, Art.4), such as a registration requirement. In this article, we trace the origins of this provision to a conceptual shift that took place during the early 1800s. Specific regulations of the book trade were superseded by the protection of all instantiations (such as performances, translations and adaptations) of abstract authored work. For two seminal copyright acts of the period, the Prussian Act of 1837 and the UK Act of 1842, we show there was considerable concern about the economic implications of this new justificatory paradigm, reflected in a period of experimentation with sophisticated registration requirements. We indicate market responses to these requirements and plea for a reconsideration of “formalities” as redressing justificatory problems of copyright in the digital environment