Copyright enforcement

computer science student at Boston's Northeastern University. It provided a platform for users to upload and download music files in a compressed digital format (MP3). It provided Music Share software freely available for Internet users to download. Users who obtain Napster's software could then share MP3 music files with others logged-on to the Napster system.

The production of digital content is a phenomenon which has completely changed the conditions of access to knowledge. Within this framework it becomes even more important to find and to formulate a new settlement for intellectual property rights balancing contrasted rights. Owners of the old technology and policy makers have found two different solutions and remedies for intellectual property rights: legal and technological. When both remedies work together any rights that a consumer may have under copyright law could be replaced by a unilaterally defined contractual term and condition. To balance this inequity this article analyses different solutions under U.S. and E.U. law, with particular attention paid to the relationship between contract law and copyright law. Ultimately this article suggests seeing technological protection measures as a souped-up standard form contract, and demonstrates how some business models are able to solve the problem of safe diffusion of digital media.

Este estudio es un encargo de la UNESCO para la XIV reunión del Comité Intergubernamental de Derecho de Autor. Pretende ofrecer un estado general de la cuestión mostrando las últimas tendencias de la piratería y sus efectos en el ámbito de la creatividad, la industria cultural y el desarrollo. Plantea asimismo soluciones prácticas y estrategias para combatirla, centrándose con más detalle en las medidas no legislativas.

One issue that has been frequently discussed in the IRIS plus series is the unauthorised supply of copyright protected works via the Internet. The resulting threat of copyright infringements could, at least partly, be prevented through the use of Internet filters, an option that forms the subject of this latest edition of IRIS plus.

Intellectual Property Right (IPRs) is assuming increasing importance in recent times. This is attributed to industrialisation and developments in modern technologies in media. This positive contribution also has its attendant challenges in terms of easy infringement of such rights in terms of piracy and counterfeiting. The effect is that it deprives the owners of such work the benefits derivable from their labour, time and expense. Globally there has been a compelling effort towards the protection of IPRs. This paper substantially highlights the concept of intellectual property rights, it examines the legal and institutional framework for the enforcement of IPRs in Nigeria. It also explores the enforcement provisions in IP Bills under the legislative process in Nigeria. The paper discussed the challenges of enforcing intellectual property rights in Nigeria and also made a recommendation. The paper concluded that the various IP legislations may be obsolete, as they did not contemplate the new mode and style of infringement that has been overtaken by internet media. This calls for a review of the Laws and Bills as the provisions in the proposed Bills are not adequate.

This is a compilation thesis in the sociology of law, which analyses copyright law in three steps; the legal norms, the social norms and the underlying conceptions in their metaphorical representation. These three steps assist in answering the overarching question: "How do legal and social norms relate to each other in terms of the conceptions from which they emanate or by which they are constructed, and what is the role played by the explicit metaphors that express these norms?"

The thesis shows how the development of copyright in Europe, when faced with the digital challenge, has been resiliently path dependent (Infosoc, IPRED and more). In the thesis, this legal trend is put in contrast to the measured social norm strength of unauthorised file sharing before and after the implementation of IPRED in Sweden in 2009. The results show that although unauthorised file-sharing decreased to some extent, in line with the manifest purpose of the directive, the social norm that corresponds to copyright remained extremely weak. This is indicative of the undeniably existing gap between the legal and the social norms of copyright. Consequences of this gap are shown in the thesis. This gap concerns how the digitalisation of society not only affects norms, but also our language and mind, which is studied in the metaphors that are constructed from underlying conceptions. All of these are relevant to law and legal analysis, especially in transitional times.

In an attempt to explain parts of why there is such a distinct gap, the thesis proposes a metaphor and conceptions theory to complement the study of norms, by elaborating on findings in cognitive linguistics. It is argued that metaphors in law, and the underlying conceptions they relate to, are of vital importance for understanding contemporary issues in copyright, especially in the transition from regulating an analogue situation to regulating a digital one. The argument here is that how copyright is conceptualised controls how it is regulated and, in this case, leads to lock-in and dependence around certain metaphors that do not function well with the conditions found in a digital society.

The use of algorithms as mechanisms to make decisions in an automated way has been increasingly expanded to a wide range of fields from private companies to online copyright enforcement. Nevertheless  in digital copyright enforcement by intermediaries it is not clear what exactly is being enforced and how it affects society as a whole. In addition, as the software companies are private they do not grant access to the source code of algorithms on the grounds that they are protected by Copyright Law and Trade Secrets regulation.
In this vein, in order to provide a holistic analysis of the problem it is necessary to begin with an overview of the effects that automated decision making produce on society; later, some of the main flaws will be addressed: biases on the software, the indeterminacy of the language and its difficultness to translate concepts into codes, the technical black-box, issues with transparency, accountability and the collision with copyright law. Afterwards, a particular analysis will focus on algorithm decision making by private companies and how to interpret the General Data Protection Regulation –especially the controversial right to an explanation (article 22) - along with a review on the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice. Finally, an assessment on online copyright enforcement and its relation with Data Protection will be provided, together with relevant ECJ cases.

In the past decade, the entertainment industry has waged a very successful legal campaign against online copyright infringements. In a series of high-profile decisions, content industries have persuaded courts to accept expansive interpretations of contributory enforcement, to create novel doctrines of copyright infringement, and to apply broad interpretations of statutory damage provisions. Many private file sharers, technology companies, university administrators, and Internet service providers have felt the reach of this litigation effort. Yet a significant empirical anomaly exists: even as the copyright industry has ramped up the level of deterrence, online copyright infringements continue unabated.
Why has the legal battle against file sharers been so ineffective? The
most straightforward explanation is that infringers are not deterred, either because the probability of getting caught remains remote or because the sanctions are not sufficiently salient. If that is the case, the expansive statutory damage award remedies in decisions such as Capitol Records v. Thomas-Rasset and Sony BMG v. Tenenbaum carry renewed promise for the entertainment industry.
In this Article we claim that this deterrence-based approach will prove futile and even counterproductive to the goals of copyright holders. We argue that copyright law faces conditions similar to Prohibition and other historical episodes of enforcement failure. When infringements are widespread, effective deterrence cannot be attained without raising enforcement to levels that undermine the support for the underlying rules. As a result, enforcement has the inadvertent effect of moving behavior in the opposite direction from that intended by the law. In the context of copyright law, enforcement has increased the gap between the social and legal perceptions of the law. Because file sharers, as a group, perceive copyright litigation as excessive, this inadvertently strengthens opposition to the legally protected interests of copyright law.
To further our understanding of the interplay between enforcement and public attitudes, we conduct two empirical studies on norms and copyright law. The results confirm that copyright enforcement is a double- edged sword. While stringent sanctions have a modest deterrent effect on file-sharing behavior, they increase anti-copyright sentiments among frequent offenders. This raises a spectacular challenge for copyright enforcement: the more copyright owners push to step up sanctions for copyright infringements, the more the public resents the protected rights. Consequently, stepping up sanctions tends to increase rather than decrease the rate and frequency of infringing activities. Our key results suggest, therefore, that more stringent copyright enforcement will further erode respect for copyrights and may prove counterproductive to copyright owners.

"Purpose
The purpose of this study is to better understand online anonymity in the global file-sharing community in the context of social norms and copyright law. The study describes the respondents in terms of use of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) or similar services with respect to age, gender, geographical location, as well as analysing the correlation with file-sharing frequencies.

Design/methodology/approach
This study, to a large extent, collected descriptive data through a web-based survey. This was carried out in collaboration with the BitTorrent tracker The Pirate Bay (TPB), which allowed us to link the survey from the main logo of their site. In 72 hours, we received over 75,000 responses, providing the opportunity to compare use of anonymity services with factors of age, geographical region, file-sharing frequency, etc.

Findings
Overall, 17.8 per cent of the respondents used a VPN or similar service (free or paid). A core of high-frequency uploaders is more inclined to use VPNs or similar services than the average file sharer. Online anonymity practices in the file-sharing community depend on how legal and social norms correlate (more enforcement means more anonymity).

Research limitations/implications
The web-based survey was in English and mainly attracted visitors on The Pirate Bay’s web site. This means that it is likely that those who do not have the language skills necessary were excluded from the survey.
Practical implications
This study adds to the knowledge of online anonymity practices in terms of traceability and identification, and therefore describes some of the conditions for legal enforcement in a digital environment.

Social implications
This study adds to the knowledge of how the Internet is changing in terms of a polarization between stronger means of legally enforced identification and a growing awareness of how to be more untraceable.

Originality/value
The scale of the survey, with over 75,000 respondents from most parts of the world, has likely not been seen before on this topic. The descriptive study of anonymity practices in the global file-sharing community is therefore likely unique.
"

Copyright and privacy are two fundamental values for a democratic society, since both enhance the development of each individual’s personality. Nevertheless, in cyberspace, copyright enforcement and the right to informational self determination have become two clashing realities. In fact, with the arrival of digital technology, especially the Internet, rightholders, facing massive on-line copyright infringements, mainly by file-sharers on peer-to-peer (P2P) systems, started developing more and more intrusive
new enforcement strategies in electronic communications as a means to identify the infringers and the committed infractions. The goal of the present paper is to study, in a context where massive unauthorized uses of copyrighted works is an undeniable reality, how the boundaries between what is public or private become fainter, whether the use of tracking softw re is consistent with personal data protection legislation, and whether it is possible to reconcile these two human rights.

This article focuses on one of the most relevant Italian judgments concerning hosting providers’ liability for copyright infringement.
In 2019, the Italian Supreme Court distinguished between active and passive hosting providers, excluding the former from the safe harbour protection provided for in Article 14 of the E-commerce Directive 2000/31 and its Italian equivalent provision. The judgment anticipated the higher standards of diligence set out in Article 17 of the EU Directive on Digital Single Market 2019/790 (DSM Directive), which introduced a direct liability regime for content sharing service providers into EU copyright law.
This article also analyses some critical aspects concerning the implementation of the DSM Directive in Italy.

La digitalizzazione delle opere protette dal diritto d’autore ha generato delle serie difficoltà per i titolari
dei diritti connessi a mantenere un controllo effettivo sulla loro circolazione nella rete. Di ancor più
difficile soluzione è la riflessione sul confine oltre il quale possano essere ritenuti civilmente responsabili
i servizi di condivisione dei contenuti online, per mezzo dei quali la rete è divenuta il palcoscenico
privilegiato nel quale vengono diffusi i contenuti, spesso senza l’autorizzazione dei loro creatori. Al varco del terzo millennio il legislatore eurounitario ha cercato di inquadrare giuridicamente i fornitori di servizi online con la direttiva 2000/31/CE, le cui disposizioni si sono rivelate negli anni a venire sempre più inadeguate in quanto ispirate ad espandere le società dell’informazione, al tempo in fase di embrionale affermazione sul mercato. Ad alimentare il dibattito si aggiunge la sensibilità della giurisprudenza europea e domestica, intervenuta nel cercare di tratteggiare uno statuto dell’internet service provider che restituisca giustizia al diritto d’autore online, in un più articolato rapporto di bilanciamento con la libertà d’impresa e la libertà d’informazione. Sull’intricato tema, la sentenza della Suprema Corte di Cassazione italiana nel caso Mediaset c/Yahoo segna un importante sviluppo nella costruzione della responsabilità civile dei prestatori di servizi online, innalzando il livello di diligenza richiesto verso una maggiore responsabilizzazione, ad oggi compatibile con le moderne tecniche di intercettazione dei contenuti ivi caricati e attribuendo ai giudici di merito il compito di valutare in concreto la sussistenza degli elementi idonei a fondare la responsabilità editoriale.