| Editorial |
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| Peer-reviewed
articles |
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Los contratos por adhesión en
plataformas electrónicas: una mirada al caso chileno
(Adhesion Electronic Contracts: A Look at the Chilean Case)
Iñigo de la Maza Gazmuri, pp.283-299
The article takes a
look at contracts of adhesion from the perspective of Chilean
legislation. While this is important from a comparative law
perspective, the article has relevance outside of Chile as the
legislation in other Latin American countries is similar in this
area.
- ‘Show me the money!’ An insight into
the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) and its interaction with Higher
Education Institutions
Dinusha Mendis, pp.300-326
The aim of this paper will be
to provide a case study of the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) and its
inter-action with Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). The paper will
begin by introducing and expanding on the concept of higher education
institutions and how they have had to adapt to copyright reproduction,
especially from the mid twentieth century, with the advent of the
photocopy machine. The paper will touch upon the copyright laws that
have attempted to regulate copying within HEIs in the UK and consider
whether it has been a success or not. The paper will then carry out a
study in to CLA and will aim to raise and answer the following question:
what really happens to the money that is collected from HEIs by the CLA
and distributed through the Authors Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS)
and Publishers Licensing Society (PLS)? Is the license fee collected
from HEIs fairly distributed amongst the right holders? Having looked at
both HEIs and collecting societies (CLA specifically), the paper will
consider whether collecting societies are the best practical solution we
have or whether we are putting up with a system that we have come to
know? The UUK v CLA case revealed the dangerous side of collecting
societies, especially that of CLA and questioned its motives and aims.
In offering a solution, the system in USA will be considered where the
US law allows for two or more competing collecting societies in one
area. Does competition combat an abuse of a dominant position, which is
what we have in the UK and is this the way forward for the UK? Or does
competition curtail creativity? Whilst some of these questions have been
answered by the author, others have been left open for consideration.
- Give and Ye Shall Receive! The
Copyright Implications of BitTorrent
Bob Rietjens, pp.327-344
BitTorrent is a new type of P2P
technology with which users download small pieces of a file, and then
start uploading these small pieces to each other. This essay analyses
whether using BitTorrent amounts to infringement of copyrights or
related rights in different European jurisdictions. Although the essay
will look specifically at BitTorrent, the arguments in this essay may
apply to other P2P programs with similar technical properties.
- Bloomsday: Copyright Estates and
Cultural Festivals
Matthew Rimmer, pp.345-389
Copyright estates have been
unduly empowered by the extension of the term of copyright protection in
Europe, the United States, Australia and elsewhere. The Estate of the
Irish novelist, James Joyce, has been particularly aggressive in
policing his revived copyrights. The "keepers of the flame" have relied
upon threats of legal action to discourage the production of derivative
works based upon the canonical texts of the novelist. The Estate has
also jealously guarded the reputation of the author by vetoing the use
of his work in various scholarly productions. Most radically of all, the
grandson Stephen Joyce threatened to take legal action to prevent the
staging of "Rejoyce Dublin 2004", a festival celebrating the centenary
of Bloomsday. In response, the Irish Parliament rushed through emergency
legislation, entitled the Copyright and Related Rights (Amendment) Act
2004 (Ireland) to safeguard the celebrations. The legislation clarified
that a person could place literary and artistic works on public
exhibition, without breaching the copyright vested in such cultural
texts. Arguably, though, the ad hoc legislation passed by the Irish
Parliament is inadequate. The Estate of James Joyce remains free to
exercise its suite of economic and moral rights to control the use and
adaptation of works of the Irish novelist. It is contended that
copyright law needs to be revised to promote the interests of libraries
and other cultural institutions. Most notably, the defence of fair
dealing should be expanded to allow for the transformative use of
copyright works, particularly in respect of adaptations and derived
works. There should be greater scope for compulsory licensing and crown
acquisition of revived copyrights.
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| Analysis |
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‘.XXX’
Sponsored Top-Level Domain
– Is it a solution to curb child
abuse due to Internet Pornography?
Indranath Gupta, pp.390-396
The proposal of having a
zone for adult entertainment over Internet was previously not
accepted by ICANN (Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and
Numbers) until the recent approval of ‘xxx’ domain for adult
entertainment. Among other reasons the main reason to launch a
specific domain for adult entertainment was to combat the child
abuse cases due to internet pornography or child pornography in
particular. This analysis is a submission of the effectiveness
of ‘xxx’ domain. The effectiveness of ‘xxx’ will not depend on
what ‘child abuse’ is but on the general practice of the
children as to how and from where they access the Internet.
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Patents on Compatibility Standards
and Open Source – Do Patent Law Exceptions and Royalty-Free
Requirements Make Sense?
Mikko Välimäki and Ville Oksanen, pp.397-406
This article discusses
the problem that open source software can not support
compatibility standards, which have patent royalties. As the use
of open source continues to grow, the article asks whether it
makes sense to include a compatibility exception in patent law
or require royalty-free licenses in formal standardization
organizations and procurement policies. The article proposes
that the answer may not be in the patent policies – be they from
the government or from industry standard bodies – but perhaps in
the practices of individual companies. While some companies want
to collect licenses for their “intellectual property” no matter
what, one can also observe that some major information
technology companies have recently dedicated patents on a
royalty-free basis to the use of open source developers without
any standardization or regulatory pressures. Encouraging such
company practices might be the best option for a government if
it considers patent royalties on compatibility standards a
policy problem.
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