The development of digital information and internet has notably improved the possibilities of information access to all kind of intellectual products by anyone from anywhere in the world. However, the new options offered by the development of technology also involve a problem for copyright. Turning them into simple chains of bits allows to copy, modify and transmit them without the knowledge of the right holder and practically without cost or effort.
Two solutions have been considered to face these problems: enacting new regulations and using technology to protect the works. The first of them, having recourse to the law, centres on passing harsher laws (in favour of the right holders), forbidding activities which were permitted before and imposing harsher sanctions against offenders. As regards technology, it involves a series of mechanisms –generically known as ECMS (Electronic Copyright Management Systems) – which allow to identify the works protected by copyright and control the access and use of them. These two channels: law and technology, do not act in an independent way, but interact with each other, as the new regulations provide legal protection for these measures or technologic mechanisms.
The analysis of the content of the three main rules (the European directive and the US and Australian acts) that have come out so far, tries to determine their impact on the traditional limitations and exceptions of copyrights, such as fair use or library’s rights, which guarantee a balance between the interests of all the parts involved: authors, commercial exploiters of the works, consumers and users. According to Professor Fernández Molina they are “immature and too protectionist laws” which apply protection techniques of the works which limit their use to excess.
Harms for users
The European Union has intended to face – through the directive for copyright in the information society of 2001- the deficiencies in the protection of intellectual property provoked by technologic development, besides reconciling their regulation in the different member states, creating a common framework for all of them. It insists on the technologic measures which control the access and use of the protected works, preventing people from doing it without meeting the conditions –essentially economic – established by the authors or right holders. The action of these technologic mechanisms, together to their legal protection against elusion, provides an excessive protection, harming the interests of consumers and users.
According to Professor Juan Carlos Fernández Molina it is a directive with a confused and ambiguous content, due to the opposing interests of multinationals, users and authors. As a consequence, its implementation in the national legislations of the 15 member states of the European Union is being very complicate, to the extent that only two of them met the time limit (December of 2002). Spain is not one of them, as we still are expecting our intellectual property act to be modified according to this directive.
USA was the first country to give attention to it imposing in 1998 the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which establishes a complex system of rules described as “devilishly complicated”, which was very criticized by experts, who considered it too protectionist and difficult to apply.
Australia reformed its Copyright Act in 2000 to adapt it to new times. It proposes an original regulation system to balance the interests of authors and consumers. Experts argue that Australia is mainly an importer of copyright products, for which it is advisable for it them to protect their interests as consumer while encourages creation.
Finally, Professor Fernández Molina draws the attention to the excessive publicity –sometimes deceptive – that big companies do about bootlegging, declaring the decadence of the sector. According to the expert, certain studies show that the downloading of music and multimedia products from the internet also plays an advertising function.
Further information: Prof Juan Carlos Fernández Molina.
Dpt. Librarianship and Documentation.
Phone number: 958 24 09 24
E-mail: jcfernan@ugr.es
