Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Neither the Current EC Directives nor TRIPS make significant legal adjustments to cater for digitised information systems serving world networks, for information superhighways are too novel and shifting a phenomenon. The implications for Copyright, as the most likely tool for shoring up their economic value, are of course, under urgent scrutiny. Whatever else, the provision of on-line services for education, information, entertainment, business and Government promises very considerable realignments in what may be loosely labeled the information industry. In conditions of such insecurity, it seems highly important at least to ensure, if possible, that creators and other providers can secure returns on the users of their material which correspond to the sale of copies and the showing of material in cinemas and on television in the world to date. There are considerable hopes and considerable dangers in a digitised world.Authors, and the creative works that they develop, will ultimately determine whether new digital networks and the global information society succeed or fail. People simply will not take part in the new digital networks if the content available is not sufficiently interesting, creative or useful. Maintaining strong copyright protections for authors of every kind of creative work is necessary to ensure that these authors have adequate, market-driven incentives and rewards to create such content and to make it available to the public in these new ways. The Berne Protocol offers thoughtful and sensitive solutions to the challenges presented by the global Information society - particularly as to the issues of computer programs, temporary copying and use, distribution, digital transmissions and technical protections - while maintaining the maximum opportunity for the quality and quantity of content to grow in the new, digital environment. A successful negotiation of the Protocol will indeed help to make new laws in the digital copyright era.
Download the paper from SSRN here.