Showing posts with label challenging for traditional copyright laws to adapt to online environment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label challenging for traditional copyright laws to adapt to online environment. Show all posts

Friday, November 13, 2009

Copyright laws must fit online evolution; Sydney Morning Herald, 11/11/09

Lance Kavanaugh, (senior product counsel, YouTube, is in Australia this week to discuss copyright issues), Sydney Morning Herald; Copyright laws must fit online evolution:

New business models will need new content ownership rules.

"PEOPLE around the world want to connect and interact with content online. We expect to be able to sit at our computer, or walk along with our mobile phone, and have content at our fingertips. The internet enables just that, and in doing so has shifted community expectations about access to content.

It is challenging for traditional copyright laws to adapt to the online environment, as was noted by WIPO director-general Francis Gurry in his address to the National Press Club in August.

In Mr Gurry's words: ''It is not necessarily by putting teenagers in jail that we are going to be able to deal with this extremely serious problem.''

Managing copyright online presents some of the most difficult technical and legal challenges on the internet - in part because global rights ownership and management are exceedingly complicated.

For example, music videos often have many different content owners who own different components of the video and audio. One party may own the video, another party the soundtrack and yet another the musical composition. You get the picture.

As a lawyer for YouTube, I am familiar with the challenges and excited about the potential solutions. I believe it's important that content owners, service providers and the public tackle this proactively. We see a lot of focus on combating copyright infringement. But do we see enough focus on the experimentation that is happening with new business models and the copyright tools that will make those new business models possible?"

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/biz-tech/copyright-laws-must-fit-online-evolution-20091109-i5hl.html