International Copyright Law Research Articles

Copyright Protection in the Digital Age: Addressing Challenges and Finding Solutions in Indonesian Civil Law

This research aims to identify the challenges faced in enforcing such legal protection. In the current digital era, advances in information and communication technology have had a major impact on various aspects of life including the creation and dissemination of intellectual works, which opens up opportunities for copyright infringement. This research uses a normative juridical approach with a qualitative descriptive analysis method. Data is collected through literature study and analysis of laws and regulations related to copyright protection and intellectual property rights. Primary data based on Law Number 28 of 2014 on Copyright, and secondary data collected from previous related research journals and other official documents. The research found that the legal protection of copyright and intellectual property rights in the digital era in Indonesia still faces various challenges. These challenges include the speed and volume of digital content dissemination, anonymity and global jurisdiction, and the effectiveness of Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology. Although Law No. 28/2014 on Copyright has regulated the economic and moral rights of creators, law enforcement is still ineffective. To overcome these challenges, a comprehensive and collaborative approach is needed between the government, digital platforms, copyright owners, and the public. Some of the proposed solutions include improved automatic detection technology using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, harmonization of international copyright law, DRM technology reform, simplification and transparency of the copyright infringement reporting process, and increased public awareness and education regarding the importance of copyright and intellectual property rights.

작곡 AI의 현재와 쟁점에 따른 국내 음악저작권 논의방향 연구

AI composer stands out as one of the most vigorously applied domains of AI technology within the music sector. This study discusses the current status of AI composer as perceived by various stakeholders in Korea through recent issues in the music industry and relevant literature, while also examining the copyright-related issues and directions of discourse. The aim is to encourage policymakers to adopt a balanced perspective on technological advancement and copyright protection, and to facilitate understanding among music industry stakeholders and composers regarding the direction of copyright discussions. To emphasize the contentious issues arising in the process of music content production, this study categorizes them into pre-creation stages, creation stages, and other areas. First, in the pre-creation stages involving data learning, copyright infringement issues arise from the replication and transmission of original data. Thus, we propose the necessity for transparent disclosure of information regarding training data, as well as discussions on the extent and method of compensation for the data copyright holders, and the need for policy support to facilitate such agreements. Second, in the post-creation stages, copyright issues revolve around the recognition of AI composer creators, ownership attribution, and protection methods. Concerning the recognition of creators, as instances of recognizing AI as creators increase globally, this study suggests preparations for potential impacts on international copyright laws. Furthermore, the distribution criteria based on AI’s role and contribution must be established, with an emphasis on the necessity for internal consensus within the music industry. Lastly, the sharing and commercial use of music composed by AI and the determination of similarity with existing works are also discussed. Specifically, ethical guidelines regarding plagiarism and the need for systems enabling objective judgment are proposed.

Translating Educational and Cultural Literacy Works under Berne, Ius Cogens, and Linguistic Genocide

The lack of works for educational and cultural literacy purposes in their own languages threatens the cultural survival of many vulnerable minority and indigenous groups worldwide. Translation could satisfy related access needs. A strict reading of international copyright law, however, does not facilitate the translation of works into other languages. Yet, it is often forgotten that, in accordance with the integration rule of treaty interpretation, the Berne Convention, and other relevant international intellectual property instruments, would have to be read in the light of internationally protected linguistic human rights in education and for cultural literacy. This mechanism could go some way towards assisting the easier translation of (parts of) works for the stated purposes into other languages. The argument made in this article, however, is that a harmonious reading of existing international copyright law with international human rights law cannot go as far as to sufficiently resolve the access needs of vulnerable groups speaking an endangered language, insofar as translated texts are concerned. In fact, it is contended that the existing regulation of translation under international copyright law is so inimical to the survival of vulnerable groups and their languages that it must be held to promote cultural or linguistic genocide. For that reason, the relevant copyright rules must be considered to conflict with ius cogens, that is, peremptory norms of international law, and to be void in their application to neglected languages. The article makes suggestions as to how countries could design national copyright law regulating translation rights and limitations and exceptions in a way that facilitates translation generally, and into neglected languages specifically. These suggestions are based on a reappraisal of the true character of translation, which must be seen to be highly transformative in nature and resulting in the creation of autonomous new works.

A reply to Keyan Tomaselli’s "The 2022 Copyright Amendment Bill: Implications for the South African universities’ research economy"

Rather than focusing on the intricate detail of the Copyright Amendment Bill (CAB), the purpose of this short reply is to outline the broader context against which copyright reform, as it affects the higher education and scientific spheres, must be understood. This context demonstrates that provisions such as Section 12A (fair use, inter alia for purposes of research and education) or Section 12D (allowing substantial reproduction, sometimes of whole textbooks, for educational purposes) constitute a bare minimum of “what is required,” and also permissible under international copyright law.

The Japanese-Language Newspaper Novel Abroad

This article presents initial findings about the history of the publication of serialized novels in Japanese-language newspapers published in North and South America. An under-studied publishing venue for literature to begin with, even less is known about the serialization of novels in these diasporic communities despite them being the most widely circulated fiction. Focusing on what can be reconstructed of the history of these works and their publication, this study focuses on five newspapers and their serialized novels during the 1930s, with a particular focus on the novel Constellations Ablaze by Ozaki Shirō and the lesser-known author Nakagawa Amenosuke. This preliminary survey suggests an industry that navigated international copyright law, reader’s tastes, and the interconnection of different local readerships.

Compliance of National TDM Rules with International Copyright Law: An Overrated Nonissue?

Seeking to devise an adequate regulatory framework for text and data mining (TDM), countries around the globe have adopted different approaches. While considerable room for TDM can follow from the application of fair use provisions (US) and broad statutory exemptions (Japan), countries in the EU rely on a more restrictive regulation that is based on specific copyright exceptions. Surveying this spectrum of existing approaches, lawmakers in countries seeking to devise an appropriate TDM regime may wonder whether the adoption of a restrictive approach is necessary in the light of international copyright law. In particular, they may feel obliged to ensure compliance with the three-step test laid down in Art. 9(2) of the Berne Convention, Art. 13 of the TRIPS Agreement and Art. 10 of the WIPO Copyright Treaty. Against this background, the analysis raises the question whether international copyright law covers TDM activities at all. TDM does not concern a traditional category of use that could have been contemplated at the diplomatic conferences leading to the current texts of the Berne Convention, the TRIPS Agreement and the WIPO Copyright Treaty. It is an automated, analytical type of use that does not affect the expressive core of literary and artistic works. Arguably, TDM constitutes a new category of copying that falls outside the scope of international copyright harmonization altogether.

Training of copyright and related rights in sub-saharan Africa

Training of intellectual property rights has been close to the heart of Professor Marianne Levin and she has been a Master Trainer, welcoming participants from all corners of the world. This is why I have chosen the topic of training for my article, congratulating her on her anniversary. Understanding how international copyright law and realities on the ground affect the functioning of the copyright market in a given country or region, offers a possibility to review and evaluate developments. A well-functioning copyright market consists of three elements: legislation, enforcement and management of copyright and related rights. This article concentrates on management of rights, but deals also with some legislative and enforcement issues. Management of rights takes place either individually by the respective rightsholder or by collective management organizations (CMOs). The latter is a feasible solution when individual exercise of rights is either impossible or impracticable.

A Scientific Analysis of the Three-Step Test: Through the Lenses of International and Australian Laws

The paper examines the open access movement and its principles concerning creative outputs and related access opportunities, considering copyright protection. The international and ongoing integration of open access practise has brought about a reconsideration of foundational principles of copyright law. The paper's discussion considers the three-step test legal edifice, which is deeply rooted in international copyright law, and argues that its importance and application is of paramount importance regarding potential revisions of copyright law that would need to introduce open access provisions.

Compliance of National TDM Rules with International Copyright Law – An Overrated Nonissue?

Compliance of National TDM Rules with International Copyright Law – An Overrated Nonissue?

Has International Copyright Law Hindered Educational Progress in the Developing World?

Has International Copyright Law Hindered Educational Progress in the Developing World?

Frederick Douglass, Copyright, and the British Press, 1845-47

In 1845, Frederick Douglass established his copyright to the Narrative of the Life in the United States in order to receive just remuneration for his work. Yet Douglass also relied on a lack of international copyright law to disseminate his abolitionist message to a transatlantic audience. While Douglass made use of both copyright-protected and free-circulating forms of publication to reach a broad audience, he could not always control how his work and image would be reprinted and adapted in the transatlantic press. During his 1845-7 lecture tour, British periodicals and newspapers creatively recontextualised, abridged, and plagiarised his Narrative in articles and reviews. These forms of reuse were conventional in the publishing world of the 1840s, yet when viewed from a modern perspective, they seem to echo the exploitative practices associated with the American slave system.

Proposals for copyright law and education during the COVID-19 pandemic

This article asks whether the catastrophic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic justifies new limitations or interventions in copyright law so that UK educational institutions can continue to serve the needs of their students. It describes the existing copyright landscape and suggests ways in which institutions can rely on exceptions in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA), including fair dealing and the exemption for lending by educational establishments. It then considers the viability of other solutions. It argues that issues caused by the pandemic would not enliven a public interest defence to copyright infringement (to the extent this still exists in UK law) but may be relevant to remedies. It also argues that compulsory licensing, while permissible under international copyright law, would not be a desirable intervention, but that legislative expansion to the existing exceptions, in order to encourage voluntary collective licensing, has a number of attractions. It concludes by observing that the pandemic highlights issues with the prevailing model for academic publishing and asks whether COVID may encourage universities to embrace in-house and open access publishing more swiftly and for an even greater body of material.

Joined Cases C-682/18 and C-683/18 Peterson v. Google & Youtube And Elsevier v. Cyando (C.J.E.U.)

Since its inception, the internet has challenged many basic principles of international copyright law. While some key “digital copyright” issues have been addressed in multilateral treaties, one of the most vexing issues with the global digital network remains—the question of the responsibility of third-party intermediaries for copyright infringements by internet users.

Openness Through the Lenses of the Three-Step-Test: International Perspectives on Copyright Protection

This paper is focused on openness movement and the principles that said movement declared regarding the use of works set under copyright protection to enable for open access works. The three-step-test legal edifice is deeply rooted in international copyright law; its meaning and application is of vital importance for any consideration of amending copyright law with the aim to include provisions for openness. Unless a provision for openness passes the three-step-test there can be no sustainable amendment of copyright law in favour of openness.

Proposals for copyright law and education during the COVID-19 pandemic

This article asks whether the catastrophic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic justifies new limitations or interventions in copyright law so that UK educational institutions can continue to serve the needs of their students. It describes the existing copyright landscape and suggests ways in which institutions can rely on exceptions in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA), including fair dealing and the exemption for lending by educational establishments. It then considers the viability of other solutions. It argues that issues caused by the pandemic would not enliven a public interest defence to copyright infringement (to the extent this still exists in UK law) but may be relevant to remedies. It also argues that compulsory licensing, while permissible under international copyright law, would not be a desirable intervention, but that legislative expansion to the existing exceptions, in order to encourage voluntary collective licensing, has a number of attractions. It concludes by observing that the pandemic highlights issues with the prevailing model for academic publishing and asks whether COVID may encourage universities to embrace in-house and open access publishing more swiftly and for an even greater body of material.

International Instrument on Permitted Uses in Copyright Law and Explanatory Notes

The International Instrument on Permitted Uses in Copyright Law (the Instrument) is the result of a research project for a balanced reconciliation of interests in copyright law. The project was coordinated by the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition and resulted in a legal instrument designed in the form of an international treaty establishing a core of permitted of works. This core of permitted is intended to be mandatory for prospective Contracting Parties, who remain free, however, to go beyond the set of permitted provided for in the Instrument. The approach undertaken on the basis of minimum permitted uses counterbalances the traditional minimum protection approach of international copyright law. Among other things, this approach supports Contracting Parties in addressing the political pressure that notoriously exists in international negotiations, especially in the context of bilateral or regional agreements. The Instrument is composed of three parts (A. Permitted uses; B. General principles of implementation; C. Competition; Abuse) and is accompanied by explanatory notes that clarify the purpose and meaning of the Instrument and its provisions.

Creating Statutory Remuneration Rights in Copyright Law: What Policy Options Under the International Legal Framework?

Statutory remuneration rights are progressively attracting the attention of policy makers as regulatory tools since they constitute a middle way between exclusivity and free uses. Remuneration rights have the potential to realise the delicate balance between access to and protection of copyrighted works, while at the same time potentially safeguarding the interests of all parties involved in the process of cultural production. Scholars have also increasingly advocated the use of remuneration rights when the enforcement of exclusive rights is hardly achievable. This is particularly the case with regard to addressing infringing mass uses in the digital environment such as streaming or peer-to-peer file sharing, or unlocking the blocking effects of exclusivity in order to foster the reuse of copyright-protected material. In these cases, the use of statutory remuneration rights would help the copyright system to fulfil its basic function and to safeguard important fundamental rights such as freedom of expression. However, despite their attractiveness, the creation of statutory remuneration rights has also some constraints as they need to comply with obligations resulting from international copyright law. Therefore, it is crucial that legislators know exactly what their room for manoeuvre is when using this tool to regulate copyright law. Surprisingly, this policy space remains until now quite blurry. This article attempts to bring clarity to the discussion: it analyses possible ways of creating remuneration rights in the light of international treaty obligations and maps all options. It argues that international copyright law provides far more policy space than often assumed to create statutory remuneration rights, offers a classification of remuneration rights based on their relationship with the exclusive rights, and invites legislators in the future to better use the full range of possibilities when reforming their copyright laws in order to reach more balanced solutions and to enhance the acceptance of the system among citizens.

Resisting print-culture norms: Charles Dickens’s “Hunted Down” in the anglophone periodical press

Charles Dickens’s 1859 serial “Hunted Down” was the first work by Dickens initially published in the U.S. and later in the U.K. “Hunted Down” was published in Robert Edwin Bonner’s New York Ledger, the most popular U.S. story paper of the mid-nineteenth century. In this article, I examine the anglophone press’s sensationalization of “Hunted Down’s” publication and what this reveals about nineteenth-century print culture. “Hunted Down,” I argue, resists correlative cultural links between a publication’s monetary value and its intrinsic literary value, i.e., its quality, length, word count, originality, and creativity. Bonner’s publication of Dickens’s story was momentous in the anglophone press because it broke away from the nineteenth-century publishing norm of unauthorized reprints, generating a global conversation concerning the value of periodical fiction. In the cultural imagination of newspaper readers, “Hunted Down’s” resistance to print-culture norms became more important than the serial itself. Examining the anglophone press’s sensationalization of “Hunted Down’s” publication offers scholars a look at how the literary market place and international copyright law shaped literary taste and value in the mid-nineteenth century.

Proposals for copyright law and education during the COVID-19 pandemic

This article asks whether the catastrophic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic justifies new limitations or interventions in copyright law so that UK educational institutions can continue to serve the needs of their students. It describes the existing copyright landscape and suggests ways in which institutions can rely on exceptions in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA), including fair dealing and the exemption for lending by educational establishments. It then considers the viability of other solutions. It argues that issues caused by the pandemic would not enliven a public interest defence to copyright infringement (to the extent this still exists in UK law) but may be relevant to remedies. It also argues that compulsory licensing, while permissible under international copyright law, would not be a desirable intervention, but that legislative expansion to the existing exceptions, in order to encourage voluntary collective licensing, has a number of attractions. It concludes by observing that the pandemic highlights issues with the prevailing model for academic publishing and asks whether COVID may encourage universities to embrace in-house and open access publishing more swiftly and for an even greater body of material.

Blockchain-mediated Licensing: Legal Engineering for Artist Empowerment

Licensing is one of the essential means of exploiting the monetary value of a musical work, and yet it is an area fraught with many issues and transactional costs which make it a difficult process for individuals and organizations. Many issues in music licensing arise from the legal complexity (e.g., national and international copyright law), business complexity (authentication, tracking, accounting, etc.), value web complexity (transparency of relationships among stakeholders), and technical complexity (e.g., establishing a global repertoire database for music, sufficient metadata standards) of working with music. Then, in addition to these issues, there are specific transactional costs (identification, negotiation, monitoring, and enforcement) associated with the licensing process. To mitigate the complexity and transactional costs associated with music and the licensing process, researchers and technologists have been investigating how new technologies and design models from the Web3 space, such as blockchain, linked data and Ricardian Contracts, can automate processes to reduce complexity, speed up payments, improve tracking, and provide other benefits in the music industry. In our report, we make our own attempt to reduce the complexity and transactional costs in the licensing process by developing an automated music license. In doing so, we first conducted a literature review synthesizing the intersection of music complexity and Web3 technologies to provide background and context to automating music licensing. Then we developed the Practical Tokenized Drafting (PTD) method, a set of core principles and practices for drafting Ricardian Contracts that interact with Web3 technologies (RC-Web3 Templates), and the Tokenized Music License (TML), an RC-Web3 Template standard form for music licensing on the OpenLaw platform. Both the PTD and TML can be adapted to meet the needs of music industry stakeholders and provide guidance to legal practitioners in drafting RC-Web3 Templates.