Law and Information

The Berkman Center’s Digital Media Project team has released one new and one updated report on the current state of the digital media ecosystem. One report is an update of the 2003 foundational White Paper by the Berkman Center and GartnerG2 on Copyright Law in a Post-Napster World. The updated edition includes the following:

• Updated business model section that includes new survey data and an overview of “legitimate” P2P stores like Wippit and Weed (Chapter 2)
• Updated and expanded analysis of legal cases and decisions relevant in the digital media space, including a brief discussion of Grokster and RIAA v. Verizon (Chapter 3)
• Revised subsection on international enforcement issues like jurisdictional questions among nations (Chapter 3)
• Updated section on regulatory developments like provisions related to the broadcast flag and digital radio, as well as proposed laws in the U.S. such as the INDUCE Act (Chapter 4)
• Expanded chapter on DRM systems including new standards, challenges, and policy issues related to the use of DRM (Chapter 5)
• Updated outlook for the future (Chapter 6)

In addition, we’ve written an International Supplement to the White Paper, which examines the transition from analog/offline to digital/online media from an international legal perspective. Here’s the abstract/overview of the Supplement:

Comments, as always, are most welcome.

Michael Geist notes in his weekly Toronto Star Law Bytes column (free registration required) that decades of international IP agreements “have failed to balance the interests of the developed and developing worlds and have led to annual outflows of billions of dollars from the developing world to the developed world.” As to copyright law in particular, Geist concludes that the WIPO’s development agenda provides “the first chance in years to fashion a global intellectual property policy that helps, rather than hinders, the developing world.” Let’s make sure that Geist’s vision comes true.

BTW, a new Berkman report on copyright law and digital media in Europe and the Asia/Pacific region will be released here within the next few days, togehter with an updated version of the foundational GartnerG2/Berkman Center White Paper “Copyright and Digital Media in a Post-Napster World.”

Our colleagues at the Institute for Information Law (IViR) at the University of Amsterdam released, as part of the INDICARE project, an interesting report on Digital Rights Management and Consumer Acceptability. It seeks to provide an overview of the state of the (European) discussion from a multi-disciplinary perspective, and analyzes social, legal, technical, and economic issues.

The report concludes that surprisingly little is know about consumers’ acceptance level of DRM, and what users’ expectations are regarding the use of digital content. The report, inter alia, calls for a better involvement of the consumer side and a joint dialogue between the market players.

The report will be updated. Three pointers to Berkman reports and papers in this context:

* re section 6.5 of the report on alternative business models, see also “Content and Control: Assessing the Impact of Policy Choices on Potential Online Business Modles in the Music and Film Industries.”

* re section 4.2 on the EU-Copyright Directive, see also “Transposing the Copyright Directive: Legal Protection of Technological Measures in EU-Member States,” and the respective Berkman project website.

* re section 4.4 on interoperability, see John Palfrey, Holding Out for an Interoperable DRM Standard, in Christoph Beat Graber, Carlo Govoni, Michael Girsberger, and Mira Nenova (eds.), Digital Rights Management: The End of Collecting Societies? (Forthcoming, April 2005.)

The Berkman Center’s Digital Media Project team has released an in-depth analysis of the impacts of policy choises on emerging business models in the music and film industries. Here’s the link to the paper and the abstract:

The online environment and new digital technologies threaten the viability of the music and film industries’ traditional business models. The industries have responded by seeking government intervention, among other means, to protect their traditional models as well as by developing new models specifically adapted to the online market. Industry activity and public debate have focused on three key policy areas related to copyright holders’ control of content: technical interference with and potential liability of P2P services; copyright infringers’ civil and criminal liability; and legal reinforcement of digital rights management technologies (DRM).

Special thanks — and congratulations — to Derek Slater and Meg Smith of the Berkman team for their work.

Yesterday was the IP-day at iLaw Eurasia, a five-day program about ICT policy organized by the Berkman Center, the eGovernance Academy Estonia, the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Advanced Network Research Group at the University of Cambridge, and the Open Society Institute. In the first session, Professor Terry Fisher provided a fantastic introduction to IP law in cyberspace in general and the current tussles over digital media in particular. He also analyzed and evaluated scenarios for the future of digital media, including approaches such as strengthening IP rights, self-help, and alternative compensation systems. I had the pleasure to talk about the implementation of the EU Copyright Directive and discuss basic policy approaches and -choices in the context of anti-circumvention legislation. We used the implementation of the EUCD as an example to illustrate some of the thorny problems often associated with the transposition of EU-IP directives and harmonizing treaty law more generally: Scope and definitions, exceptions and limitations, and sanction and remedies.

In a second module, we were discussing IP protection of computer software. Terry started the session with an excellent lecture, offering a comprehensive overview of the different approaches to – and the evolution of – software protection by law. Much of the subsequent discussion, most ably led by Berkman Center’s Excecutive Director and iLaw program chair John Palfrey, was about the promise of Free/Open Source Software in Eurasia. Many of the fifty representatives from government, the private sector, and civil society in Eurasia emphasized the important role of OSS in creating a more sustainable information industry in economically less developed countries. However, we also discussed potential problems related to OSS, such as documentation, training, maintenance, etc., and legal risks associated with it. In this context, we touched upon potential concerns such as liability and (increased?) exposure to IP litigation – a much discussed topic here and abroad, given recent litigation in the U.S.

Our fabulous Mary Bridges, Communication Director at the Berkman Center, has summarized some of the take-away points from yesterday’s discussion.

At the Berkman Center, we released today a paper on the current state of implementation of the EU Copyright Directive (EUCD), with emphasis on the transposition of the provisions on the legal protection of technological measures sections (such as encryption, digital watermarking, copy-control technologies, and the like.) In this study, we have taken a closer look at the relevant definitions, exemptions, sanctions and remedies associated with the national anti-circumvention laws. What are the key findings?

First, our analysis reveals that uncertainty over the scope of provisions aimed at protecting technological measures as well as the definition of crucial terms (such as ‘effective measures’) persists – even at a rather basic level. The question, for instance, as to what extent access control mechanisms fall under the definition of technological protection measures and, as a consequence, are protected by the anti-circumvention provisions has been contested.

Second, the study explores different ways in which national implementations have addressed the problem of privately applied technological protection measures vis-�-vis the traditional exceptions to copyright within the framework as laid down in the EUCD. As demonstrated in the paper, incumbent member states have not made broad use of the possibility to take measures ensuring that private copying exceptions will survive technological protection measures, and have gone different paths as far as the implementation of the public policy exception as set forth by the EUCD are concerned.

Third, a brief analysis of some approaches to sanctions and remedies taken by EU member states suggests that member states have interpreted the relevant provisions of the EUCD – calling for “appropriate sanctions and remedies” – in different ways. While all countries impose civil sanctions in the case of a violation of anti-circumvention provisions, differences remain with regard to criminal sanctions. The regimes range from significant criminal sentences for both acts of circumvention and trafficking in circumvention devices and services to copyright laws that stipulate modest fines, but no imprisonment in the case of a violation of the anti-circumvention provisions.

The project website also provides an interactive chart with a resource page containing international and national legislation on technological protection measures with focus on the relevant laws of EU member states for further research. We intend to update the site as soon as new anti-circumvention provisions have been enacted in a EU member state.

Over the past few months, I’ve been working on a couple of Berkman papers on developments in international and national copyright laws as far as digital media is concerned. I’ve been looking at U.S. law, at the legislative and regulatory developments in Europe (both EU legislation and national implementations of EU law), and at selected jurisdictions in the Asia-Pacific region such as Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, China, Japan, and South Korea. The papers provide a rough overview of the copyright laws and regulations in these countries, and analyze the different paths and stages of evolution of the international copyright ecosystem. The reports also describe the current state of digital media law in action.

Currently, I’m working on one of the reports’ conclusion section. As always, it’s quite a challenge to come up with “crispy” takeaway points. Well, here’s the way I intend to frame it; any feedback is very much appreciated.

It seems to me that one might roughly distinguish between three stages of development of copyright protection across the world:

1) Copyright laws at a very nascent stage. Copyright laws of countries in this category do either not exist at all, or have not incorporated the relevant protection levels set forth by the Berne Convention or TRIPS.

2) Copyright (IP) laws that are TRIPS compliant.

3) Copyright laws that have incorporated the WIPO treaties or are otherwise in compliance with WCT/WPPT.

These categories, in turn, say something important about the driving forces of copyright legislation across the globe. By and large, TRIPS has become the major force aimed at creating a level playing field of IP protection in many parts of the world. It strikes me that TRIPS, today, is particularly important in the transition from “nascent” to “well-developed” copyright regimes. The implementation of the WIPO treaties, in contrast, can be understood as the “fine-tuning” of copyright legislation – from “well-developed” to “advanced”, so to speak. One other important driving force hasn’t been mentioned here, but is discussed in the papers: bilateral free trade agreements (such as the AUSFTA and the USSFTA.)

The second question is: What are the effects of the international treaties and bilateral trade agreements on copyright legislation? Well, it’s quite obvious: The international treaty system works as a leveler and harmonizes the fundamental issues and corner stones of a copyright system. However, the Berkman papers will also demonstrate that significant differences among national laws remain. Even if we look at countries that are in compliance with the WIPO treaties, we find different approaches, especially with regard to definitions (e.g. of technological protection measures), exceptions (e.g. private copying), and sanctions/remedies against infringements. Another addendum is necessary: The digital media landscape across the globe – even the most “advanced” – also varies significantly when it comes to the “law in action.” The reasons are manifold and include huge differences in civil and criminal procedure laws as well as, of course, economic, cultural, historical… differences in law enforcement practices. However, the papers will also illustrate that law enforcement – as far as online piracy is concerned – is increasingly an internationally orchestrated multi-actor (rightholders, rights organizations, governmental task-forces, etc.) effort.

The third question I’d like to touch upon is: what are the effects of international copyright frameworks and corresponding national legislation on any given information environment? Here, one might want to distinguish between four stakeholders: Users/consumers, rightholders, businesses, and policy-makers. Unfortunately, I do not have much empirical data to support potential claims about the effects of legislative developments on each category. However, anecdotal evidence suggests certain trends. In essence, one might argue that the “most advanced” copyright systems have a bias towards protection of rightholders and businesses at the cost of users. Especially the review of current case law in European jurisdictions suggests that this trend is not only a U.S. phenomenon, but structural in nature. (To be sure: the interactions among contract and copyright law, technology, and business models are rather complicated. You’ll find an analysis of the interplay between these elements in our iTunes case study.) One final point with regard to policy-makers: The papers will demonstrate that policy-makers – at the national level – still have some leeway in the way they design their copyright ecosystem, despite international harmonization.

Against this backdrop, my research interest moves towards “best practice models” in the digital age. Stay tuned. (BTW, I’ll link to the above mentioned papers as soon as they become available.)

Berkman Center’s Executive Director John Palfrey lectured earlier today at Cornell’s University Computer Policy and Law Program. In the first session, he made a strong case why, in fact, it makes sense to teach “cyberlaw” rather than the “law of the horse”. John started with an analysis of three contemporary legal and regulatory issues that are Internet-specific: Spam, the digital media crises, and VoIP. From there, he moved to a more abstract level and discussed some of the basic characteristics – phenomena such as large-scale infringements, uncertainty surrounding the applicability of traditional legal doctrines such as fair use, high costs of enforcement and coordination, and global reach of the medium, among others – which make the law of the Internet (at least in part) different from other areas of law. John also used variations on Lessig’s theme of the four modalities of regulation to illustrate what makes Internet law special.

In the second lecture, John Palfrey offered a thoughtful and comprehensive overview of the current digital media crisis. Starting with the Napster saga, he moved forward to the current state of affairs, discussing from a comparative law perspective, among other things, the Berkman Center’s iTunes case study and recent case law at the intersection of copyright and contract law as well as technological protection measures. Finally, John discussed possible scenarios for the future of digital media.

Both lectures provide a great opportunity to get an expert’s overview where cyberlaw stands and what some of today’s hottest topics are; highly recommended, also to the audience abroad. And even if you are a scholar working in the same field, you’ll enjoy Palfrey’s presentation, since it’s one of the increasingly rare occasions to re-think some of the fundamental assumptions and concepts of cyberlaw. Thanks, John!