Thesis (LLD) -- Stellenbosch University, 1988. / Article 1 Section 8 Clause 8 of the Constitution of the United States of America empowers Congress "to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries". This simple clause sums up in a few words the philosophy and underlying principles of modern copyright law. Copyright law, like other branches of intellectual property law (i.e. the laws of patents, trade marks and designs), seeks to create a system whereby the creator of original works or intellectual property is afforded a qualified monopoly in the use or exploitation of his work in order, first, to compensate and reward him for the effort, creativity and talent expended and utilized in the creation of his work, and secondly, to act as an incentive for him to use his talents and efforts to create more and better works or items of intellectual property. The qualified monopoly is limited in duration and after the expiry of the term the work falls into the public domain and can be freely used and reproduced by others. A balance is struck between the interests of the individual and the public interest. The rationale behind this philosophy is the establishment of a profit incentive for creators of intellectual property. The effectiveness of the profit motive is dependent upon the degree to which the creator of the intellectual property is able to maintain and enforce his qualified monopoly. If the law is not effective in enabling the creator of intellectual property to maintain and enforce his monopoly then the efficiency of the operation of the profit motive will be impaired. Consequently, the soundness and effectiveness of the law of copyright is a . significant factor in the promotion of the creation of intellectual property and ultimately• in enriching our culture and promoting our knowledge and well-being. Viewed from a different perspective, the purpose of copyright is to prevent one man from appropriating to himself what has been produced by the skill and labour of others1 . In broad terms, copyright may be described as the exclusive right in relation to a work embodying intellectual property (i.e. the product of the intellect) to do or to authorize others to do certain acts in relation to that work, which acts represent in the case of each type of work the manners in which that work can be exploited for personal gain or profit. Copyright is an immaterial property right. The subject of the right is a work of the intellect or spirit and thus an intangible. Copyright in a work is akin to ownership in a tangible article. The following analysis of the essential nature of copyright by Slomowitz AJ in Video Parktown North (Pty) Limited v Paramount Pictures Corporation is instructive: "It seems to me that when he who harbours an idea, by dint of his imagination, skill or labour, or some or all of them, brings it into being in tactile, visible or audible form, capable thereby of being communicated to others as a meaningful conception or apprehension of his mind, a right of property in that idea immediatelycomes into existence. The proprietary interest in that object of knowledge is the ownership of it and is called 'copyright'. It might just as well be called 'ownership', but we have chosen to call it by another name, reserving 'ownership' as the appellation for the proprietary interest in corporeal things, by way of semantic, but not, as I see it, legal, distinction. In this sense, copyright has sometimes been called 'intellectual property', as it indeed is. " Copyright subsists in the work of the intellect embodied in a material form which is a tangible article. The tangible or physical form of the work embodies two separate items of property, i.e. the copyright in the work of the intellect and the ownership of the tangible article. Ownership of the two items of property must be distinguished and can vest in different persons. Transfer of the ownership of one of the i terns of property does not necessarily affect transfer of the ownership of the other item of property.

Overview of special protection regimes of copyright works including the comparison with the general protection regime Object and purpose of this work is to explore the special protection regimes of copyright works. But before I start to deal with these regimes, I find necessary to, at least in brief, outline the historical development and basic concepts of copyright law. In my opinion special protection regimes can not be examined without knowledge of these basics. In the next chapter, I will discuss the general protection regime of copyright works. I think it is a sort of bridge between first general chapters on one side and specialities of special protection regimes of copyright works on the other. Copyright law has traditionally belong to private law, so I will explore different interventions to author rights and the means of protection, typically aimed at compensating injured. However, certain aspects of copyright law are so important to society that it is protected by criminal and administraticve means, and those belong to public law. For this area is typical preventive repressive method of solving infringements. Thus compensating injured is on the second place, the primary is to protect society from such undesirable phenomena. In the last part of this work, I'll get to the very core of this work,...

The diploma thesis focuses on the relations between digital intermediaries and media organizations on the Czech market. Its goal is to describe a new, ever-evolving environment, which has been affected by the swift rise of digital platforms and by the change in business models of publishers. The thesis puts this phenomenon in the context of media studies and critical political economy and defines the terms "digital platforms" and "digital intermediaries". It also looks more closely at the current challenges related with the content consumption in the digital environment - which includes a discussion of copyright, changes in user behavior and content monetization. The research part is based on individual in-depth interviews with members of digital intermediaries, media organizations and third parties. The analysis takes place in a general, ethical/normative point of view and aims for understanding how the parties interact and work together, how they perceive this environment, how they see its changes and future development.

It is undeniable that internet nowadays is part of our life and community. Internet opens door for expression of ideas and opinions which can both be given and taken freely. Moreover, with the rise of the new internet model, Web 2.0, the platform becomes wider and more interactive which has an effect on the copyright aspect all over the world. User-generated content was soon born as a result of Web 2.0 and caused unsolvable legal issues in the copyright regime due to its transformative nature which acts in contrary to the exclusive right of the author.          This thesis paper seeks the best solutions for the complicated nature of user-generated content in online platform which has been causing legal tension in copyright law for quite some time. The paper will focus mainly in the scope of EU copyright law as well as Thai copyright law. The Canadian new specific exception for user-generated content and its semi-open “fair dealing” exception will be discussed as a possible approach to the solution. Moreover, Human rights aspect in scope of freedom of expression will be analyzed in order to find the balance between the copyright and human rights in the most effective way to serve the core purpose of copyright law.

As the popularity of mashups attests, individual songs and their increasingly irrelevant prepackaged albums no longer seem to constitute a finished product to many who listen to them. Instead individual songs often serve as raw ingredients for use in another recipe – the playlist, the mix, the mashup – which those who buy the songs make and exchange. The strict division between producers and consumers, which the music industry exploited very productively throughout the twentieth century, seems to be breaking down, and I conclude that the mashup models a different, more fluid relationship between musical consumption and production. In this dissertation, I examine mashups from a music theoretical point of view. I argue that the mashup represents an important musical genre with distinguishing characteristics and its own historical development. Chapter 1 defines the mashup and devises a typology that classifies the genre based on two characteristics: number of songs combined and the mode of their combination (vertical or horizontal). This typology leads to the division of the mashup into four distinct subtypes. Chapter 2 discusses significant legal challenges raised by the mashup, especially with respect to copyright. Mashups – at least in recorded form – began as an underground, largely non-commercial phenomenon, due to the cost and difficulty of obtaining permission to use another artist’s recording. I also examine various pertinent musical lawsuits and discuss their influence on the way mashup artists make and distribute their works. Chapter 3 probes the historical factors that led to the development of mashups, including sampling in hip hop music (both recorded and live), collage techniques in art music, and looping and mixing by club DJs. Chapter 4 investigates the aesthetics of the mashup. Critics in the popular press and on the internet judge mashups without specifying the musical characteristics that make a particular mashup successful. This chapter seeks to locate the aesthetic principles that govern mashup production. Using commentary by mashup artists as well as transcription and analysis of several mashups, I divide these aesthetic principles into two categories: construction and meaning. I then develop a list of characteristics that mashup artists aim for when creating their tracks. / text

De lagstadgade bestämmelser som reglerar upphovsrättens övergång återfinns i 3 kap. upphovsrättslagen. Från flera håll har kritiska röster väckts om att dessa bestämmelser behöver överses och moderniseras för att hänga med den kontinuerligt pågående utvecklingen av dels teknik men framför allt den upphovsrättsliga marknaden. I samband med detta har Upphovsrättsutredningen sammanställt ett SOU-förslag som benämnts Avtalad upphovsrätt. Där flerstående förslag till förändringar och tillägg utav de nuvarande bestämmelserna ges. Genom detta SOU-förslag har utredningen noggrant granskat och kommit med förslag till bestämmelser som behöver förändras eller införas. Grundtanken har ansetts vara att undersöka huruvida upphovsmännens ställning som avtalsparter bör stärkas på den upphovsrättsliga marknaden. Denna uppsats kommer att granska dessa förslag, sammanställa dem mot de nuvarande bestämmelserna och framför allt diskutera vilken betydelse dessa förslag har för det nuvarande rättsläget och upphovsmännens ställning. / The stipulations that regulate both the economical and non-profitable aspects of copyright transactions are to be found within the third chapter of the Swedish Copyright Law. Critics have claimed that the current regulations regarding copyright transactions are outdated. It has been pointed out that these regulations need to be updated as regarding to the development of the current technology and the changing copyright market. In accordance with these claims, the board investigating the Swedish Copyright Law - issued by the Swedish government – has presented a motion named Contracted copyright. This motion contains several changes and supplements to the current regulations in the third chapter of the Swedish Copyright Law. The board has through this motion investigated whether and to what extent the current regulations need to be changed in accordance with the current development of the copyright market. The general idea has been to investigate whether the copyright authors require an extended protection on the copyright market. Therefore the purpose of this essay has been to investigate these suggested changes to the current regulations. In order to determine whether they serve their suggested purpose and how they will affect the current legal position.

This study focuses on the Nordic model of Extended Collective Licenses (ECL) and how this model can be used in the process of digitalising and publishing archival material such as photos, letters, maps or films. The question that this study aims to deal with is what advantages, and disadvantages, there are for archives and copyright holders when an ECL is being used. To help answering this question the ‘theory of the knowledge commons’ has been applied. The research question has been answered through a text analysis based on legal texts including Swedish law. To get a wider perspective, international literature such as official and law-binding documents from the Nordic countries and the European Union have also been consulted. Policies and contributions to the debate about making cultural heritage available online have also been included to give light to the complexity of the question. In 2013 the Swedish copyright law was changed to facilitate for certain archives and libraries to sign an agreement with a so called Collective Administration Organization (CAO). There are no examples of ECLs being used by Swedish archives for classical archival materials even if the possibility to draw up this type of agreements has existed since 2005. One of the reasons might be the complexity of the law and that the archival institutions have problems of interpreting it. The institutions often avoid providing access to their materials online or choose material they know is in the public domain already. Finding copyright holders before publishing material online is time-consuming. One of the major advantages of functional ECLs is that they save time and resources – both for the archival institutions and the copyright holders. The ECLs provide an opportunity for the archival institutions to share their collections with the public and the copyrights holders get an organized way to communicate their terms and conditions. This is a two years master’s thesis in Archive, Library and Museum studies.

Thesis (M.A.)--Carleton University, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 148-155). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

This thesis deals with the way in which copyright law is changing in the digital environment and the mechanisms which are facilitating this change. It deals with these issues by analysing the mechanisms of this change, specifically Digital Rights Management (DRM)Systems and anti-circumvention legislation, and the impact which this change is having on the rights of copyright users. The purpose of copyright is to provide an incentive to authors to continue creating while simultaneously providing a public good in allowing the public to use those creations in certain ways. Copyright achieves this purpose by granting both the author and user certain rights. The author is given a limited monopoly over their work in exchange for allowing this work to enter the public sphere and ensuring that users of that work can utilise that work in certain limited ways. The success of copyright thus rests on maintaining the balance between the rights of these parties. The rise of digital technology has created a situation in which copyright content can be easily copied by any party with a Personal Computer and disseminated around the globe instantly via the Internet. In response to these dangers, copyright owners are making use of DRM systems to protect content. DRM systems include various measures of control within its scope. Theses systems allow for copyright owners to control both access and use of content by copyright users. DRM Systems are not foolproof measures of protection however. Technologically sophisticated users are able to circumvent these protection measures. Thus, in order to protect DRM Systems from circumvention, anti-circumvention legislation has been proposed through international treaties and adopted in many countries. The combined effect of these protection measures are open to abuse by copyright owners and serve to curtail the limited rights of copyright users. The end result of this is that the balance which copyright law was created to maintain is disrupted and copyright law no longer fulfils its purpose. This thesis undertakes an analysis of these issues with reference to how these issues affect copyright users in developing countries. This is done with particular reference to possible approaches to this issue in South Africa as South Africa is a signatory to these anti-circumvention treaties.

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