The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the Dutch collecting society for private copying remunerations, Stichting de Thuiskopie, are pleased to present the fourth joint publication on the law and practice of private copying systems around the world. The survey provides a global view of private copying compensation (also known as private copying levies), an important element of copyright and related rights infrastructure. It aims to facilitate evidence-based decision-making and to provide an update on important developments in the private copying law and practice of countries that have such an exception in their legal arsenals.
The scope and legitimacy of private copying is one of the most highly contested issues in digital copyright. This book offers an original analysis of private copying and determines the actual scope of private copying as an area of end-user freedom in the digital world. In particular, it examines the permissibility of digital private copying with a view to clarify the legal uncertainty as to its scope.
Examines in detail the legal and practical issues that underly the modern music and video industries. In addition, the book reviews the current legislation in force and examines the interplay between national legislation and the relevant international convention.
How does copyright law take into account the interests of third parties, especially the general public’s interest in the greatest possible dissemination of knowledge and culture? Twelve basic questions give copyright law experts from more than forty countries the opportunity to provide answers related to their national law on the following matters: categories of works and subject matter, eligibility conditions, duration, “users’ rights,” the three-step test, misuse, differentiations between categories of right holders, TPM, and relations of copyright law to other legal areas such as fundamental rights, competition law, consumer protection law, media law etc. The standardized form of the reports makes it easy to see the impacts of copyright law in the industrialized countries as well as in emerging economies; in common-law and civil-law approaches; in countries of the Andean Community and of the European Union, as well as in countries that are not party to the WIPO Treaties. A detailed preliminary chapter provides an approachable overview of issues and results. This chapter also discusses the voice of academia, represented by the European Copyright Code of the “Wittem Group.”
WIPO commissioned this publication - with the support of the Norwegian Copyright Development Association (Norcode) - to be used as reference material in various training activities on collective management.
In the course of the last two decades, collective management organizations (CMOs) have become the nerve centres of copyright licensing in virtually every country. Their expertise and knowledge of copyright law and management have proven essential to make copyright work in the digital age. However, they have also been at the centre of debates about their efficiency, their transparency and their governance. This book, an extensively revised and updated edition of the major work on the legal status of CMOs, offers an in-depth analysis of the various operating CMO models, their rights and obligations vis-à-vis both users and members, acquisition of legal authority to license, and (most important) the rights to license digital uses of protected material and build (or improve current) information systems to deal with ever more complex rights management and licensing tasks. All the chapters have been updated since the 2010 edition. New chapters on Africa, China, Central Europe and New Zealand (together with Australia, which is no longer discussed in the separate chapter on Canada) have been added. Factors considered include the following: • role of 'families' such as the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC) and the International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organizations (IFRRO); • cases where the unavailability of adequating options makes authorized use difficult or impossible taking transaction costs into account; • growing importance of extended repertoire systems (also known as extended collective licensing); • relationship among collective management, rights to remuneration, and the ways in which CMOs acquire authority to license; • transnational licensing and the possible role of multi-territorial licensing; and • threat of monopolies or regional oligopolies for the management of online music rights. Legal underpinnings covered in the course of the analysis include the 1996 WIPO Copyright Treaties, the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the Napster case, the Santiago Agreement, relevant EU Papers and the 2014 Copyright Directive, and work done by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Part I presents a number of horizontal issues that affect collective management in almost every country. Part II is divided on a geographical basis, focusing on systems representative of the principal models applied in various countries and regions. Each country specific or region-specific chapter provides a historical overview and a presentation of existing CMOs and their activities, gives financial information where available, describes how CMOs are supervised or controlled by legislation, and offers thoughts about the challenges facing CMOs in the country or region concerned. Many of these national and regional commentaries are the only such information sources available in English. Whatever the future of copyright holds, it is clear that users will continue to want access and the ability to reuse material lawfully, and authors and other rights holders will want to ensure that they can put some reasonable limits on those uses, including an ability to monetize commercially relevant uses. CMOs are sure to be critical intermediaries in this process. The second edition of this important resource, with its key insights into the changing nature of collective management, will be of immeasurable value to all concerned with shaping policy towards collective management or working with the ever more complex legal issues arising in digital age copyright matters.
This book gathers international and national reports from across the globe on key questions in the field of antitrust and intellectual property. The first part discusses the application of competition law to online sales platforms, which is increasingly a focus for anti-trust authorities around the world. A detailed international report explores which are the major challenges for competition law generated by the growth of online platforms. It provides an excellent comparative study of this complex and challenging subject. The second part of the book gathers contributions from various jurisdictions on the topic “To what extent do current exclusions and limitations to copyright strike a fair balance between the rights of owners and fair use by private individuals and others ?" This section presents an international report, which offers an unparalleled comparative analysis of this topic, bringing together common themes and contrasting the various national provisions dealing with exceptions to copyright, amongst other things. The book also includes the resolutions passed by the General Assembly of the International League of Competition Law (LIDC) following a debate on each of these topics, which include proposed solutions and recommendations. The LIDC is a long-standing international association that focuses on the interface between competition law and intellectual property law, including unfair competition issues.
