This book presents a thorough exploration of the legal framework of EU digital copyright law from the perspective of the end-user. It provides a detailed examination of the implications that the spectacular rise of this new actor creates for the interplay between the EU copyright system and human rights law, competition law and other important policies contained in the EC Treaty. This comprehensive, book is crucial reading for lawyers, policymakers and academics.

Inside the EU, modernizing its copyright framework for the Internet age is considered a key step toward a Digital Single Market in the creative content sectors. To explore the most suitable and realistic policy options to achieve this objective, the CEPS formed a task force to foster a multistakeholder dialogue on the major challenges for copyright law in the online content sector today. Drawing on those discussions, this report contains the conclusions and policy recommendations organized around three main themes: - Licensing rules and practices in the online music and film sectors - The definition and implementation of copyright exceptions in the digital environment - The present and future of online copyright enforcement in Europe

This monograph conducts a comprehensive analysis of the EU right of communication to the public, one of the exclusive rights under EU copyright law, and provides an alternative framework for its interpretation and application. The present state of the law is unsatisfactory; there is uncertainty in the acquis communautaire and courts at the EU and domestic levels have struggled to apply the right. Therefore, the book identifies the problems with the existing right of communication to the public and proposes recommendations for reform. In addition to reforming the scope of the right of communication to the public, the jurisdiction and applicable law in relation to the right are analysed and changes are recommended. Thus, the book covers both the scope and practicalities of a coherent and effective reform of the right. In light of the continuing development and accompanying tribulations with this right at the EU level, this book provides a topical and timely analysis that will be of interest to academics and practitioners working on EU copyright law. Cited in Opinion of Advocate General Henrik Saugmandsgaard Øe, joined Cases C-682/18 and C-683/18, Frank Peterson v Google LLC, YouTube LLC, YouTube Inc., Google Germany GmbH and Elsevier Inc. v Cyando AG, ECLI:EU:C:2020:586, Court of Justice of the European Union, 16 July 2020.

This book examines the challenges posed to Australian copyright law by streaming, from the end-user perspective. It compares the Australian position with the European Union and United States to draw lessons from them, regarding how they have dealt with streaming and copyright. By critically examining the technological functionality of streaming and the failure of copyright enforcement against the masses, it argues for strengthening end-user rights. The rising popularity of streaming has resulted in a revolutionary change to how digital content, such as sound recordings, cinematographic films, and radio and television broadcasts, is used on the internet. Superseding the conventional method of downloading, using streaming to access digital content has challenged copyright law, because it is not clear whether end-user acts of streaming constitute copyright infringement. These prevailing grey areas between copyright and streaming often make end-users feel doubtful about accessing digital content through streaming. It is uncertain whether exercising the right of reproduction is appropriately suited for streaming, given the ambiguities of “embodiment” and scope of “substantial part”. Conversely, the fair dealing defence in Australia cannot be used aptly to defend end-users’ acts of streaming digital content, because end-users who use streaming to access digital content can rarely rely on the defence of fair dealing for the purposes of criticism or review, news reporting, parody or satire, or research or study. When considering a temporary copy exception, end-users are at risk of being held liable for infringement when using streaming to access a website that contains infringing digital content, even if they lack any knowledge about the content’s infringing nature. Moreover, the grey areas in circumventing geo-blocking have made end-users hesitant to access websites through streaming because it is not clear whether technological protection measures apply to geo-blocking. End-users have a severe lack of knowledge about whether they can use circumvention methods, such as virtual private networks, to access streaming websites without being held liable for copyright infringement. Despite the intricacies between copyright and access to digital content, the recently implemented website-blocking laws have emboldened copyright owners while suppressing end-users’ access to digital content. This is because the principles of proportionality and public interest have been given less attention when determining website-blocking injunctions.

In this book, Benjamin Farrand employs an interdisciplinary approach that combines legal analysis with political theory to explore the development of copyright law in the EU. Farrand utilises Foucault’s concept of Networks of Power and Culpepper’s Quiet Politics to assess the adoption and enforcement of copyright law in the EU, including the role of industry representative, cross-border licensing, and judicial approaches to territorial restrictions. Focusing in particular on legislative initiatives concerning copyright, digital music and the internet, Networks of Power in Digital Copyright Law and Policy: Political Salience, Expertise and the Legislative Process demonstrates the connection between copyright law and complex network relationships. This book presents an original socio-political theoretical framework for assessing developments in copyright law that will interest researchers and post-graduate students of law and politics, as well as those more particularly concerned with political theory, EU and copyright law.

Information Law Series Volume 45 In a copyright system characterised by broad and long-lasting exclusive rights, exceptions provide a vital counterweight, especially in times of rampant technological change. The EU’s controversial InfoSoc Directive – now two decades old – lists exceptions in which an unauthorised user will not have infringed the rightholder’s copyright. To reform or not to reform this legal framework – that is the question considered in great depth in this book, providing detailed theoretical and normative analysis of the Directive, the national and CJEU case law arising from it, and meticulously thought-out proposals for change. By breaking down the concepts of ‘flexibility’ and ‘legal certainty’ into a set of policy objectives and assessment criteria, the author thoroughly examines such core aspects of the framework as the following: the justifications for exceptions, e.g., safeguarding the fundamental rights of users; the regimes established in legislation and case law for key exceptions; the need to promote technological development; the importance of avoiding re-fragmentation caused by uncoordinated national legislative responses to technological changes; the legal status of digital technologies that rely on unauthorised uses of copyright-protected works; and the pros and cons of importing a fair use standard modelled after that of the United States. In an invaluable concluding chapter, the author puts forward a set of reform proposals, articulating their advantages and responding to potential objections. In doing so, the chapter also identifies, synthesises and critically examines the various proposals that have been advanced in the academic literature. In its decisive contribution to the debate around the InfoSoc Directive and the rules that guide its implementation, interpretation, and application, this book isolates the contentious structural features of the framework and examines them in a critical fashion. The author’s systematised review of scholarly and policymaking proposals for increasing flexibility and legal certainty in EU copyright law will be welcomed by practitioners in intellectual property law and other areas of economic law, as well as by interested policymakers and scholars.

Media literacy educators rely on the ability to make use of copyrighted materials from mass media, digital media and popular culture for both analysis and production activities. Whether they work in higher education, elementary and secondary schools, or in informal learning settings in libraries, community and non-profit organizations, educators know that the practice of media literacy depends on a robust interpretation of copyright and fair use. With chapters written by leading scholars and practitioners from the fields of media studies, education, writing and rhetoric, law and society, library and information studies, and the digital humanities, this companion provides a scholarly and professional context for understanding the ways in which new conceptualizations of copyright and fair use are shaping the pedagogical practices of media literacy.

This book provides an article-by-article commentary to all the provisions of Directive 2019/790 on copyright in the Digital Single Market. It is the first complete commentary to Directive 2019/790, analyzing the history, objectives, and content of each and every provision.

With the ongoing evolution of the digital society challenging the boundaries of the law, new questions are arising – and new answers being given – even now, almost three decades on from the digital revolution. Written by a panel of legal specialists and edited by experts on EU Internet law, this book provides an overview of the most recent developments affecting the European Internet legal framework, specifically focusing on four current debates. Firstly, it discusses the changes in online copyright law, especially after the enactment of the new directive on the single digital market. Secondly, it analyzes the increasing significance of artificial intelligence in our daily life. The book then addresses emerging issues in EU digital law, exploring out of the box approaches in Internet law. It also presents the last cyber-criminality law trends (offenses, international instrument, behaviors), and discusses the evolution of personal data protection. Lastly, it evaluates the degree of consumer and corporate protection in the digital environment, demonstrating that now, more than ever, EU Internet law is based on a combination of copyright, civil, administrative, criminal, commercial and banking laws.

For decades, the debate about the tension between IP and antitrust law has revolved around the question to what extent antitrust should accept that IP laws may bar competition in order to stimulate innovation. The rise of IP rights in recent years has highlighted the problem that IP may also impede innovation, if research for new technologies or the marketing of new products requires access to protected prior innovation. How this 'cumulative innovation' is actually accounted for under IP and antitrust laws in the EU and the US, and how it could alternatively be dealt with, are the central questions addressed in this unique study by lawyer and economist Thorsten Käseberg. Taking an integrated view of both IP and antitrust rules – in particular on refusals to deal based on IP – the book assesses policy levers under European and US patent, copyright and trade secrecy laws, such as the bar for and scope of protection as well as research exemptions, compulsory licensing regimes and misuse doctrines. It analyses what the allocation of tasks is and should be between these IP levers and antitrust rules, in particular the law on abuse of dominance (Article 102 TFEU) and monopolisation (Section 2 Sherman Act), while particular attention is paid to the essential facilities doctrine, including pricing methodologies for access to IP. Many recent decisions and judgments are put into a coherent analytical framework, such as IMS Health, AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline (in the EU), Apple (France), Orange Book Standard (Germany), Trinko, Rambus, NYMEX, eBay (US), Microsoft and IBM/T3 (both EU and US). Further topics covered include: IP protection for software, interoperability information and databases; industry-specific tailoring of IP; antitrust innovation market analysis; and the WTO law on the IP/antitrust interface.