Copyright Law In The Digital Environment - Crisis And Measures

The copyright law system, as one branch of the intellectual property system has theclose relationship with the development and progress of the technology, which maybeis a striking and different aspect compared with other law systems. During itshistory of the development, the copyright law system has been continuously amendedand adjusted for the progress of the new technologies. And the cooperation betweenthe them is basically workable from the historical point of view.Since the emergence of the information society, one of which main characteristicsis the development and application of the digital technology, the copyright lawsystem has been suffering the challenges and crisis never experienced before. Themain content of this thesis is to discuss and analyze how the relevant internationalorganizations and some main countries to deal with these challenges and crisis fromthe legal and policy aspects. The thesis is composed of six chapters. Taking thechallenges and crisis brought about by the digital technology as the starting point,the thesis tries to compare and summarize the methods and ideas to resolve thesechallenges and crisis through the studying and analysis of the international legalinstruments, the relevant laws, the regulations and the cases of China, U.S.A andthe European Union.Chapter I mainly discusses the challenges being brought out by the development ofthe technology, especially the digital technology; the challenges could be dividedinto four categories, the first one is the great improvement of the personalreproduction and distribution ability of the copyrighted works; the second one isthat the intermediaries by which the copyrighted works distribute have one morefamily member besides the traditional publishing entities and broadcasting stations,that is the digital technology networks, especially the Internet. So the copyrightlaw system which operates depending on these traditional intermediaries has toadjust accordingly; the third one is that the digital technology is improving theconvergence of the different media; the current copyrights are media-specific designed, which is not totally complied with the convergence of the media; the fourthone is the semiotic democracy phenomena; the digital technology provide the masswith cheap and easy tools to create works; so the ordiniary people can activelyparticipate in the creation and derivation of the works; the current copyright lawsystem has yet been ready for this mass participation of works creation.In the chapter II, the thesis mainly discusses the guidelines and policy from theinternational levels, especially from the Internet treaties of the WIPO .The liabilities of the information society service providers are the main topicsin the chapter III; as discussed in the chapter I, the intermediaries are in thefunction as the doorkeepers for the implementation of the copyright laws, but thedigital technology makes out the additional intermediary for the works distribution;how and what the liability the new intermediary shall take are the main issues forevery countries legislators.The chapter IV is about the technical protection measures for the copyrighted works.Besides the enforcement of the copyright law, one more copyright protection measurefor copyright holders is available in the digital technology environment, that is,the technical protection measure. But the TPM also undermines the balance of thecopyright law system between the interests of the copyright holders and the publicinterests. Some key provisions in the Internet treaties, DMCA and European Uniondirectives deal with this issue. Whether and how to recover and maintain the balancein the digital environment is the main topic in this chapter.The chapter V is about the issues of levy and DRM. It seems that the three wayscurrently exist for copyright holders to protect their copyrighted works orguarantee their benefit, they depend on the liabilities of the intermediaries, thecollection of the copyright levy from the reproduction and distribution media andmanagement of the copyrighted works by DRM. But the three ways do not cooperatewell, especially the conflict between the levy system and DRM system is obviouslyexisting. This chapter will discuss these issues and recommend the suggestive optionbetween them. The chapter VI, as the conclusion chapter of the whole thesis will introduce anddiscuss some possible solutions for the challenges and crisis which have beensuggested or designed from the copyright experts. So far they cannot resolve theall the issues, but maybe they can enlighten us to some extent.