About this book: Copyright Reconstructed is the result of a collaborative research project, ‘Reconstructing Rights’ funded by Microsoft Europe, that normatively examined the core economic rights protected under EU copyright law, with the aim of realigning these rights with economic and technological realities. It follows an interdisciplinary approach, combining economic and legal methods. The book presents various concurring future models of ‘reconstructed’ copyright law. The historical evolution of copyright has led to a growing disconnect between the legal definitions of economic rights and the business and technological realities they regulate, eroding copyright’s normative content and distorting the scope of its economic rights. What’s in this book: This book is structured as follows. Following a historical chapter that illustrates how a structure of media-specific economic rights has developed in international copyright law as copyright’s catalogue of rights, a number of alternative models for reconstructing rights are presented in the form of chapters by Europe’s most respected copyright scholars and economists focusing on potentially copyright-relevant acts that lie at the borders of exclusive rights: digital resale;private copying;hyperlinking and embedding;cable retransmission; andtext and data mining. How this will help you: Offering the most incisive current thinking on copyright’s economic rights in an increasingly networked world where acts of usage of works occur on a global or regional scale rather than on a purely national territorial basis, this book will be of immeasurable value not only to academics but also to practitioners and professionals in intellectual property law. This book guides copyright lawyers and scholars in the fields of international and EU copyright law in understanding the nexus between copyright law and technological and economic change. It also helps lawmakers and judges at the European, national and international levels formulate legislative responses to the challenges of the digital environment.

This monograph conducts a comprehensive analysis of the EU right of communication to the public, one of the exclusive rights under EU copyright law, and provides an alternative framework for its interpretation and application. The present state of the law is unsatisfactory; there is uncertainty in the acquis communautaire and courts at the EU and domestic levels have struggled to apply the right. Therefore, the book identifies the problems with the existing right of communication to the public and proposes recommendations for reform. In addition to reforming the scope of the right of communication to the public, the jurisdiction and applicable law in relation to the right are analysed and changes are recommended. Thus, the book covers both the scope and practicalities of a coherent and effective reform of the right. In light of the continuing development and accompanying tribulations with this right at the EU level, this book provides a topical and timely analysis that will be of interest to academics and practitioners working on EU copyright law. Cited in Opinion of Advocate General Henrik Saugmandsgaard Øe, joined Cases C-682/18 and C-683/18, Frank Peterson v Google LLC, YouTube LLC, YouTube Inc., Google Germany GmbH and Elsevier Inc. v Cyando AG, ECLI:EU:C:2020:586, Court of Justice of the European Union, 16 July 2020.

This timely and thought-provoking book explores how the protection of copyright in the digital age requires a reconsideration of how this is balanced with other fundamental rights and freedoms. Analysing the impact of the rise of digital technologies and the internet on copyright regimes, it particularly focuses on the effects of recent reforms to the EU’s legal framework for the protection and enforcement of copyright.

The Copyright/Trademark Interface How the Expansion of Trademark Protection Is Stifling Cultural Creativity Martin Senftleben The registration of cultural icons as trademarks has become a standard protection strategy in the field of contemporary cultural productions and plays an ever-increasing role in the area of cultural heritage. Attempts to register and ‘evergreen’ the protection of cultural signs, ranging from ‘Mickey Mouse’ to the ‘Mona Lisa’, are no longer unusual. This phenomenon – characterized by the EFTA Court as trademark registrations motivated by ‘commercial greed’ – has become typical of an era where trademark law is employed strategically to withhold or remove cultural symbols from the public domain. In an extraordinary analysis of the clash between culture and commerce, and imbalances caused by protection overlaps arising from cumulative copyright and trademark protection, this book draws attention to the corrosive effect of indefinitely renewable trademark rights and underscores the necessity to safeguard central preconditions for the proper functioning of the copyright system in society at large: the freedom to use pre-existing works as reference points for the artistic discourse and building blocks for new creations, and the need to ensure the constant enrichment of the public domain. Emphasizing how overlapping copyright and trademark protection endangers the proper functioning of intellectual property rights in the literary and artistic domain, the author examines whether the intellectual property system is capable of mitigating the risks arising from cumulative protection. Such issues and topics as the following are treated in depth: the different configuration of intellectual property rights in accordance with different policy objectives and societal functions, in particular the cultural imperative in copyright law and the market transparency imperative in trademark law; problems arising from the registration of cultural icons for use on souvenir and merchandising articles; lack of sufficient safeguards in trademark law against cultural heritage branding; current scope of trademark rights, including the protection of brand value and communication functions, and the deterrent effect of trademark protection on cultural creativity; possibility of a categorical exclusion of contemporary cultural icons and cultural heritage material from trademark protection; development of a strict gatekeeper requirement of ‘use as a mark’ to prevent unjustified trademark infringement claims; development of robust, culturally based defences against trademark infringement claims; and general guidelines for the regulation of protection overlaps in intellectual property law, based on insights derived from the analysis of copyright/trademark overlaps. Drawing on aesthetic, sociological and economic theories that support initiatives to safeguard the autonomy of the literary and artistic domain and support remix activities of artists, the author suggests sound criteria for identifying signs with cultural significance that should be excluded from trademark registration. The book shows how intellectual property law can make rights cumulation strategies less attractive and avoid the loss of inner consistency and social legitimacy, easing the tension between indefinitely renewable trademark rights and the need to preserve and cultivate the public domain of cultural expressions and other intellectual creations that enjoy protection for a limited period of time, such as industrial designs and technical know-how. Its assessment criteria will assist and enable trademark examiners and judges to identify relevant cultural signs, and its proposals for regulatory responses to protection overlaps in intellectual property law will prove of great and lasting value to lawyers, policymakers, and scholars dealing with intellectual property law.

This book gathers and builds on research into distinct national and regional traditions in regulating innovation. It is an early attempt at a comprehensive legal history of the uneven trans-Atlantic harmonization of IP law. Authors explore harmonization as a legal mandate and a progressive ideal, and imagine areas in which coherent regulatory webs could build a more vibrant trans-Atlantic knowledge economy.

Examining a neglected aspect of international copyright law, this book highlights the obligation on nations to maintain broad copyright exceptions.

This work provides a full and clear exposition of the fundamentals of intellectual property law in the UK. It combines excerpts from cases and a broad range of secondary works with insightful commentary from the authors which will situate the law within a wider international, comparative and political context.

Reforming Intellectual Property brings together 19 of the world’s leading scholars in the field to offer their unique insight into the future of intellectual property. Providing a diverse array of perspectives on the most pressing reforms needed in the current IP regime, whether in terms of legislation at national and international levels, or interpretation of existing law, this exceptional book highlights the key issues in this area and sets out an agenda for future research and policy.

During the past century, intellectual property (IP) law has expanded within and beyond national borders. The field of IP law was once a niche area concerning authors, inventors, and trademark owners. Today, IP law acts as a complex regime of instruments, institutions, and actors that negotiate overlapping, diverging, and occasionally competing public policies on a global scale. As IP continues to expand beyond borders, the instruments and tools utilised for its global protection rely on public international law as the common denominator and unifying frame. Intellectual Property Ordering Beyond Borders provides an evaluation of the most pertinent public international law questions raised by this multidimensional expansion. This comprehensive and far-reaching volume tackles problems such as generalist approaches under the law of treaties; custom and general principles; interfaces between IP and other normative orders, such as trade and investment; and interdisciplinary accounts from the economic, political, and social science perspectives. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.