A legal framework for global joint copyright management in musical works : based on Rawls’s Theory of Justice

For a right to exist under federal copyright law, it must be affirmatively granted in Section 106 of the Copyright Act and fall within the accepted subject matter listed in Section 105. The exclusive right that musicians have in their sound recordings is limited to the right to “perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.” The peculiar wording of “digital audio transmission” exempts radio stations from paying for the right to use the sound recordings that make up all of their music programming. Congress has tried to end this exemption several times, most recently in a failed attempt to pass the Performance Rights Act (“PRA”) of 2009. Since the failure of the PRA, two developments have further complicated the issue: a private deal by music industry giants—Clear Channel and Warner Music Group—and state copyright law suits over sound recording royalties for pre-1972 recordings. These events further compel the need for a full federal sound recording performance right. This Note contends that the best way for Congress to finally institute a full performance right is to use the current congressional review of copyright law to eliminate the exemption. As the Copyright Office recently completed a comprehensive review of music licensing law, including this change in an already proposed omnibus music copyright bill presents the perfect opportunity to eliminate the exemption.

Several of the authors question the efficacy of copyright, which is increasingly regarded as benefiting multinational organisations rather than individual authors and performers. Others are less critical of copyright per se, but question its ability to meet the new challenges of a digital era. Some of the specific issues covered include: law and international transactions of copyrighted material; economic analysis of copyright and freedom of expression; music licensing in the digital age; the role of copyright in stimulating cultural development; internet distribution of copyright material; and the problems of licensing museum images. A great deal has been written on the theoretical aspects of copyright and the cultural industries but much less on the applied side – how copyright law works in practice. How do lawyers, firms and artists manage and administer copyright and what economic and legal problems does this raise? In recent times in particular, technological inventions appear to have outpaced the development of copyright law. This illuminating book addresses these issues and looks at the serious implications for copyright policy in the future. Several of the authors question the efficacy of copyright, which is increasingly regarded as benefiting multinational organisations rather than individual authors and performers. Others are less critical of copyright per se, but question its ability to meet the new challenges of a digital era. Some of the specific issues covered include: • law and international transactions of copyrighted material • economic analysis of copyright and freedom of expression • music licensing in the digital age • the role of copyright in stimulating cultural development • internet distribution of copyright material • the problems of licensing museum images. International in scope and offering views from both academics and practitioners, this book will interest and inform economists, lawyers and policymakers alike. Commercial managers and business analysts involved with copyright would also benefit from reading this comprehensive yet accessible book.

This report offers a quantitative statistical approach to the Media and Content Industries (MCI). It is based on official data sources and complemented with data from non-official data sources. The current OECD definition of the MCI sector is discussed, as regards the limitations of the definition itself and of its operationalization. The approach taken in the collection of data, and also problems with data availability, are dealt with.\nThe official data sources consulted include Eurostat data for EU Member States, the OECD and national statistical offices. In addition, the report draws on a number of non-official sources which complement official statistics and contribute to a better analysis and understanding of the economic profile of the MCI sector, particularly when describing new developments not (yet) covered by official statistics. Data from non-official sources to describe some emerging trends regarding the effect of ICT on the MCI are also provided. \nThe study contains an economic profile of the Media and Content Industries for the individual EU Member States and for the US, Japan, India and China.

Law is the nexus of copyright and contract that binds the music industry together from the music lovers to the music makers, to music sellers and beyond. Law is the inescapable glue. The digital environment challenges in every sense all that we know and understand about borders, boundaries and national identity-concepts that are essential to all current legal systems. In this fluid space a variety of ideas and approaches attempt to understand and shape this infinite black hole of information, a political war is being waged over the meaning and the means of production of culture, of which music is a part and to which legal systems give definition and a framework of exchange. It can be argued that it is the legal definition of music as property that is protected by copyright (Wikstrom) that created the music industry. The music and media landscape has changed: it has expanded in the digital era beyond national boundaries and now includes countless blogs and special interest websites along with social media giants Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. News, information and entertainment are received and consumed in a multiplicity of different ways, often simultaneously. Modern ideas of democracy and media power that have shaped regulation of the press and audio visual media are arguably outmoded and ever more difficult to police. In this chapter we will examine how music copyright and the all-conquering contract law is being developed and utilised to control the exchange of music, from the policing of the internet to the all rights deals and the free labour machines of the new cyber lords, Google, Facebook et al.

Social justice is a fundamental principle underpinning the formation of a fair and prosperous society. In modern literature, John Rawls's theory of justice, which includes the Equal Liberty Principle and the Difference Principle, is widely recognized as a key framework for social justice in the Western world. However, this theory has been criticized for its lack of attention to the spiritual and moral dimensions relevant to religious societies. In contrast, Islam offers a more holistic concept of social justice, implemented through waqf as a sustainable wealth redistribution mechanism. This study critically analyzes Rawls's theory of social justice from the perspective of Islamic social justice, specifically through waqf. Using a qualitative method with a descriptive-comparative approach, it explores the key differences and similarities between these two concepts. The findings indicate that while both seek to achieve justice, the Islamic concept, embodied through waqf, incorporates spiritual and moral dimensions absent in Rawls's theory. In conclusion, this study provides a more comprehensive perspective on social justice by integrating Islamic principles, particularly waqf, as a complementary alternative to Rawlsian justice. The research aims to enrich the literature on social justice and serve as a foundation for further studies on the application of Islamic justice concepts in modern society.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the status that the concept of merit goods (as first stated by Musgrave in The Theory of Public Finance) has/should have in Rawls's theory. We first examine Rawls's position regarding this issue in A Theory of Justice. Next, we claim that the attitude of the ‘second’ Rawls about it is rather ambiguous and vacillates between exclusion and inclusion. We attempt to prove that thanks to the concepts Rawls has developed from 1985 onwards (especially the concept of public reason), he could have resorted to the concept of merit goods to cope better with his new objectives.

This chapter critically reviews the existing frameworks in health ethics, policy and law and frames the author's ideas as a solution to a perplexing problem: the inability of current frameworks to provide adequate health promotion and protection and to solve health-related problems in the real world. These approaches include welfare economics and utilitarianism, communitarianism and liberal communitarianism, egalitarianism (encompassing applications of Rawls's Theory of Justice, Fair Equality of Opportunity and other elements), libertarianism and market based approaches (where the government's role is to protect individual rights, particularly property rights, but not to guarantee a right to health) and democratic procedures. It discusses the deficiencies associated with using these approaches in a theory of health and social justice, drawing on examples such as the Oregon Medicaid experiment. The chapter emphasizes the need for a new integrative approach —— the health capability paradigm —— that establishes health capability and a right to health, guides collective choice and integrates consequentialist and proceduralist aims.

Copyright law has an ambiguous relation with freedom of expression. On the one hand, copyright law protects the free expression of creators by ensuring that they reap the benefits of their own work. Without the existence of copyright law, any creator would fear the appropriation of her work by others. Copyright allows artists to express themselves without worrying about the potential reproduction of their words, art or music.1 On the other hand, as is often noted, copyright law restricts the form that expression might take by forbidding the free use of copyrighted materials. In a rapidly changing environment with new technologies, it is not only the enforcement of copyright that has been put into question but also its moral legitimacy (Davies, 2002, p. 32). The conflict between freedom of expression and copyright raises a number of important normative issues. Not all of them can be addressed in this chapter. In particular, I will not address here the important normative issues raised by the direct copyright control that some corporations assert over the use of cultural and intellectual works.2

Piracy is the single greatest threat to copyright owners in the US and globally, and China stands at the heart of the international piracy epidemic, producing nearly two-thirds of the goods on the $512 billion worldwide counterfeit market. Chinese piracy costs the US music and film industries billions of dollars in losses each year, and the Chinese domestic music and film industries have been decimated at the hands of pirates. Any solution to the international piracy problem must begin with a solution to the problem in China. However, the road to such a solution has become far more difficult with the rapid growth of the Internet in China, and consequently, the rapid growth of Internet piracy there. This paper contemplates what the future holds for the protection of audiovisual works in China. It is meant to provide cultural and historical context to the copyright piracy epidemic in China, and, with that context in mind, realistically assess three policy directions from which the Chinese government might choose going forward as it seeks to defeat piracy in the Internet age and develop vibrant domestic music and film industries. The three policy directions examined are: (1) cracking down on piracy; (2) staying the present course; and (3) establishing an online alternative compensation system that would allow users to download unlimited music and movies from the Internet while ensuring copyright owners are fairly compensated for their works. I argue that the third option could provide the optimal balance between the objectives of Chinese consumers (more entertainment at a lower price), copyright owners (fair compensation), and the Chinese government (cultural enrichment and reduction of Internet and physical piracy). Information used in this paper was obtained from numerous interviews I conducted in Shanghai and Beijing during December 2004 and January 2005. All of those interviewed are connected with copyright in China, either in the administrative, legal, or entertainment fields. Interviewees included government officials, intellectual property lawyers, an appellate court judge specializing in intellectual property cases, law professors, music producers, a television producer, a publicist, an agent, songwriters, and music industry executives.

The law of Copyright Act 1957 has been giving protection to literary, dramatic or musical works, artists, cinematograph film and sound record. Now days it has been challenging even in the field of research publications, thesis and patent. In this paper the Researchers focus on the laws of copyrights and libraries, also on the challenges and issues of copyright. Some of the cases related to the copyright are also discussed. Keywords: Copyright Laws, Library, Infringement of copyright, Intellectual Property, Licenses Cite this Article Vishwasrao S Mane, Namita Khot. Copyright Act, 1957: A Study with Reference to Selected Cases in India. Journal of Advancements in Library Sciences. 2019; 6(Special Issue 1): 336s–341s.

The paradigmatic roles of copyright and patent laws have been, respectively, to protect original authorial expressions from illicit copying and novel and nonobvious functional designs (if they have been appropriately claimed and examined by patent officials) from illicit uses. It would be convenient if copyright law could be assigned the role of protecting the expression in computer programs and patent law the role of protecting program functionality. While courts continue to try to distinguish between program expression and program functionality, this distinction has proven elusive in the decades since the U.S. Congress decided to extend copyright protection to computer programs.For more than twenty years, a series of court cases have held that copyright infringement does not occur when a second comer needs to copy some aspects of another firm’s program in order to achieve compatibility with other programs. Courts have deemed the functional requirements for achieving compatibility to be unprotectable elements of these copyrighted programs, even though more than a modicum of creativity may have imparted originality to these elements.The seeming consensus that program interfaces necessary for interoperability are unprotectable by copyright law was recently called into question by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) in Oracle Am., Inc. v. Google Inc. At issue was whether the command structure of certain elements of the Java application program interface (API) was protectable by copyright law. The CAFC reversed a lower court ruling that this command structure was an unprotectable method of operation, or alternatively that copyright protection was unavailable under the merger doctrine. The CAFC was untroubled by the prospect that software developers might obtain both patent and copyright protection for APIs of computer programs. There was, in its view, no need to sort out functionality and expression in computer programs. Copyright could protect both as long as there was a modicum of creativity to support the claim of copyright. The Oracle decision has rekindled a decades-old debate, which many had thought had been settled in the late 1990s, about the proper scope of copyright protection for computer programs and how courts should go about analyzing claims of software copyright infringement. The U.S. Supreme Court decision not to review the Oracle decision leaves the CAFC ruling intact for the time being.This Article takes issue with the CAFC’s ruling and analysis. It aims to provide guidance about how courts should assess claims of copyright infringement in computer program cases. Part II reviews some key software copyright decisions and explains why the Second Circuit’s test for software copyright infringement is more compatible with traditional principles of copyright law than the Third Circuit’s is-there-any-other-way-to-do-it test. The Second Circuit recognized that sometimes external factors, such as the need to be compatible with other programs, constrain the design decisions of subsequent programmers, and when this happens, those constraints limit the scope of copyright protection in programs. While there is much in the Second Circuit’s ruling to praise, that court failed to heed the statutory directive in 17 U.S.C. § 102(b) that procedures, processes, systems, and methods of operation should also be filtered out before making judgments on copyright infringement claims in software cases. Part III articulates five propositions about § 102(b) that should be uncontroversial. It explains the important role that § 102(b) has played in numerous computer program cases. It goes on to discuss numerous respects in which the CAFC in Oracle misinterpreted § 102(b), as well as numerous cases in which courts have held that aspects of programs that are necessary for achieving interoperability with other programs or hardware are too functional to be protected by copyrights. Part IV explains why the merger doctrine has an important role to play in the assessment of infringement claims involving computer programs and why the CAFC erred in its interpretation of this doctrine. Courts should explicitly recognize a merger of function and expression doctrine in computer program cases. This doctrine usefully complements analysis of elements that may be unprotectable under § 102(b) as necessary incidents to the reimplementation of an unprotectable method or process.Part V considers the roles that copyright and patent law should play in protecting program innovations, with particular attention to how courts should assess claims that copyright protection should be unavailable to aspects of programs that might be eligible for patent protection. The CAFC in Oracle conflated copyright and utility patent protections for software as though it was unnecessary to even try to distinguish program expression and functionality. Part VI offers a pragmatic approach to distinguishing between program functionality and expression in copyright cases and a refinement of the Second Circuit’s test for software copyright infringement that is consistent with the overwhelming majority of software copyright cases (even if not with the CAFC’s Oracle decision) and traditional principles of copyright law. Competition and ongoing innovation will better thrive when the scope of copyright protection is relatively thin, allowing programmers to reuse functional design elements and know how that will promote the progress of science and useful arts, as the Constitution directs.

After reviewing John Rawls's arguments against utilitarianism in A Theory of Justice and then examining Michael Sandel's and Robert Nozick's criticisms of those arguments, Scheffler points to three important similarities between utilitarianism and Rawls's own theory. Both the theories are systematic and constructive in character, both treat common‐sense notions of justice as deriving from a more authoritative standard, and both are committed to distributive holism, in the sense that they regard the justice of any assignment of benefits to a particular individual as dependent on the justice of the overall distribution of benefits in society. These similarities may make it seem that Rawls's theory fails to remedy utilitarianism's neglect of the distinctness of persons. But Scheffler argues that Rawls's theory accommodates holistic pressures while maintaining a commitment to the inviolability of the individual. Scheffler also suggests that the complexity of Rawls's attitude toward utilitarianism in A Theory of Justice may help to explain his willingness, in Political Liberalism, to treat utilitarianism as a candidate for inclusion in an overlapping consensus.

Political Utopias: Contemporary Debates

In my reply to Pogge's critique of Rawls's international relations theory, I will try to show two things: (1) that Pogge's account of the public criterion of domestic social justice endorsed by Rawls is a partial one and (2) that this leads him to wrongly postulate a significant asymmetry between Rawls's domestic and international theories of justice. In the end, I hope to show that the domestic and international accounts are characterized by a significant degree of symmetry – that both accounts are motivated by Rawls's fundamental concern with self-respect. In other words, a more expansive, complete account of the domestic public criterion of social justice necessarily leads us (contra Pogge) to affirm a significant degree of continuity between the domestic and international accounts.

In Analysis: Rethinking the Microfoundations of Social Science, Clements develops a new, morally grounded model of political social analysis as a critique of improvement on both neoclassical economics rational choice theory. What if practical reason is based not only on interests ideas of the good, as these theories have it, but also on principles sentiments of right? The answer, Clements argues, requires a radical reorientation of social science from the idea of interests to the idea of social justice.According to Clements, systematic weaknesses in neoclassical economics rational choice theory are due to their limited model of choice. According to such theories in the utilitarian tradition, all our practical decisions aim to maximize the satisfaction of our interests. These neo-utilitarian approaches focus on how we promote our interests, but Clements argues, our ideas of right, cognitively represented in principles, contribute independently no less fundamentally to our practical decisions.The most significant challenge to utilitarianism in the last half century is found in John Rawls s Theory of Justice and Political Liberalism, in which Rawls builds on Kant's concept of practical reason. Clements extends Rawls's moral theory his critique of utilitarianism by arguing for social analysis based on the Kantian Rawlsian model of choice. To illustrate the explanatory power of his model, he presents three detailed case studies: a program analysis of the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, a political economy analysis of the causes of poverty in the Indian state of Bihar, a problem-based analysis of the ethics politics of climate change. He concludes by exploring the broad implications of social analysis grounded in a concept of social justice. Paul Clements s Analysis mounts an important intervention into the philosophy of the social sciences, challenging the tired fact/value, empirical/normative binaries that continue to impoverish social analysis. His insistence that social analysis must engage both facts norms, the empirical the normative, the good the right, interest principle that empirical social scientists must engage constructively on questions of autonomy social justice is noble ultimately essential if social science is to justify its place in the years to come. Fonna Forman-Barzilai, University of California, San Diego