From the Print Media to the Internet by Marie Lebert (mobile ebook reader .TXT) 📕

Besides this gigantic and lively encyclopedia, the people working in these different fields can increase exchanges thanks to electronic mail and discussion forums. For once, a (relatively) cheap new tool permits people to communicate quickly and worldwide with no concern for time and boundaries.

The disruption of the print media by the Internet has led to new perspectives for intellectual property and regulations about cyberspace. The so-called "multimedia convergence" has led to major changes in jobs. We are living the first years of the information society. Will this society provide any changes for the better?

9.2. Intellectual Property

The massive arrival of electronic texts on the Web is a real problem for applying the rules relating to intellectual property. Digital libraries, for example, would like to post commercial documents but can't do so yet, until there is a system allowing the surfer to pay the equivalent royalties. With a few clicks, any text or article posted on the Internet can be very easily retrieved and copied - much more easily than by photocopying - without its author being paid for the use of his text. And what about all the hyperlinks giving access to all kinds of documents from one website?

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), an intergovernmental organization which is one of the 16 specialized agencies of the United Nations System of Organizations, says on its website:

"As regards the number of literary and artistic works created worldwide, it is difficult to make a precise estimate. However, the information available indicates that at present around 1,000,000 books/titles are published and some 5,000 feature films are produced in a year, and the number of copies of phonograms sold per year presently is more than 3,000 million."

WIPO is responsible for the promotion of the protection of intellectual property throughout the world through cooperation among States, and for the administration of various multilateral treaties dealing with the legal and administrative aspects of intellectual property. Intellectual property comprises two main branches: (1) industrial property, chiefly in inventions, trademarks, industrial designs, and appellations of origin; and (2) copyright, chiefly in literary, musical, artistic, photographic and audiovisual works.

Copyright protection generally means that certain uses of the work are lawful only if they are done with the authorization of the owner of the copyright. As explained by WIPO in International Protection of Copyright and Neighboring Rights, the most typical are the following:

"the right to copy or otherwise reproduce any kind of work; the right to distribute copies to the public; the right to rent copies of at least certain categories of works (such as computer programs and audiovisual works); the right to make sound recordings of the performances of literary and musical works; the right to perform in public, particularly musical, dramatic or audiovisual works; the right to communicate to the public by cable or otherwise the performances of such works and, particularly, to broadcast, by radio, television or other wireless means, any kind of work; the right to translate literary works; the right to rent, particularly, audiovisual works, works embodied in phonograms and computer programs; the right to adapt any kind of work and particularly the right to make audiovisual works thereof."

Under some national laws, some of these rights - which together are referred to as 'economic rights' - are not exclusive rights of authorization but, in certain specific cases, merely rights to remuneration. In addition to economic rights, authors (whether or not they own the economic rights) enjoy 'moral rights' on the basis of which authors have the right to claim their authorship and require that their names be indicated on the copies of the work and in connection with other uses thereof, and they have the right to oppose the mutilation or deformation of their works.

Started in July 1993, the International Trade Law (ITL) Monitor was one of the very first law-related WWW sites, and the first dedicated to a particular area of law. The site is run by Ralph Amissah, and hosted by the Law Faculty of the University of Tromso, Norway. The section relating to Protection of Intellectual Property gives access to various documents, including the European Commission Legal Advisory Board (LAB): Intellectual Property.

Until the payment of royalties for copyright is possible on the Web, digital libraries focus on 19th-century texts, or older texts, which belong to public domain. In many countries, a text enters the public domain 50 years after his author's death.

In Clearing an Etext for Copyright, Michael Hart gives Project Gutenberg's volunteers some rules of thumb for them to determine when works enter the public domain. For the United States:

a) Works first published before January 1, 1978 usually enter the public domain 75 years from the date copyright was first secured, which is usually 75 years from the date of first publication. (This is the rule Project Gutenberg uses most often).

b) Works first created on or after January 1, 1978 enter the public domain 50 years after the death of the author if the author is a natural person. (Nothing will enter the public domain under this rule until at least January 1, 2023.)

c) Works first created on or after January 1, 1978 which are created by a corporate author enter the public domain 75 years after publication or 100 years after creation whichever occurs first. (Nothing will enter the public domain under this rule until at least January 1, 2053).

d) Works created before January 1, 1978 but not published before that date are copyrighted under rules 2 and 3 above, except that in no case will the copyright on a work not published prior to January 1, 1978 expire before December 31, 2002. (This rule copyrights a lot of manuscripts that we would otherwise think of as public domain because of their age.).

e) If a substantial number of copies were printed and distributed in the U.S. without a copyright notice prior to March 1, 1989, the work is in the public domain in the U.S."

When Project Gutenberg distributes in the United States, U.S. law applies. When it distributes to other countries, local law applies.

Project Gutenberg and The On-Line Books Page, among others, are concerned with the new Copyright Extension. On October 28, 1998, John Mark Ockerbloom wrote in the News of The On-Line Books Page:

"The copyright extension bill mentioned in the October 9 news item is now law, having been signed by President Clinton on October 27. This will prevent books published in 1923 and later that are not already in the public domain from entering the public domain in the United States for at least 20 years.

I have started a page to provide access to copyright renewal records, which eventually should make it easier to find books published after 1922 that have entered the public domain due to nonrenewal. I welcome contributions of additional records, in page image, text, or HTML format.

Although the bill has become law, I would encourage readers to speak loudly in support of the public domain. Congressional testimony indicates that some in the entertainment industry favor even longer copyright periods, effectively preventing anything further from ever entering the public domain. Your voice is needed to help stop this from happening."

Journalists, too, are particularly concerned by this problem of intellectual
property rights. During the ILO Symposium on Multimedia Convergence held in
January 1997, Bernie Lunzer, Secretary-Treasurer of the Newspaper Guild, United
States, stated:

"There is a huge battle over intellectual property rights, especially with freelancers, but also with our members who work under collective bargaining agreements. The freelance agreements that writers are asked to sign are shocking. Bear in mind that freelance writers are paid very little. They turn over all their future rights - reuse rights - to the publisher and very little in exchange. Publishers are fighting for control and ownership of product, because they are seeing the future."

Another participant to this Symposium, Heinz-Uwe Rübenach, of the Federal
Association of German Newspaper Publishers (Bundesverband Deutscher
Zeitungsverleger), said:

"Copyright is one of the keys to the future information society. If a publishing house which offers the journalist work, even on an on-line service, is not able to manage and control the use of the resulting product, then it will not be possible to finance further investments in the necessary technology. Without that financing, the future becomes less positive and jobs can suffer. If, however, publishers see that they are able to make multiple use of their investment, then obviously this is beneficial for all. Otherwise the costs associated with on-line services would increase considerably. As far as the European market is concerned, this would only increase competitive pressures, since United States publishers do not have to pay for multiple uses."

DOI: The Digital Object Identifier System is an identification system for intellectual property in the digital environment. Developed by the DOI Foundation on behalf of the publishing industry, its goals are to provide a framework for managing intellectual content, link customers with publishers, facilitate electronic commerce, and enable automated copyright management.

The Introduction to the Digital Object Identifier specifies:

"The Internet represents a totally new environment for commerce. As such, it requires new enabling technologies to protect both customer and publisher. Systems will have to be developed to authenticate content to insure that what the customer is requesting is what is being delivered. At the same time, the creator of the information must be sure that the copyright in the content is respected and protected.

In considering the new systems required, international book and journal publishers realized that a first step would be the development of a new identification system to be used for all digital content. This Digital Object Identifier (DOI) system not only provides a unique identification for that content, but also a way to link users of the materials to the rights holders themselves to facilitate automated digital commerce in the new digital environment.

Developed and tested over the last year, the DOI system is now being used by more than a dozen U.S. and European publishers in a pilot program that has been running since July. Participation in Phase Two of the Prototype was extended to all publishers at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October 1997."

Penny Pagano, a former Washington correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, is a Washington, D.C.-based freelance writer. In Intellectual Property Rights and the World Wide Web, an article published in AJR/NewsLink, she wrote: "Today, those who create information and those who publish, distribute and repackage it are finding themselves at odds with each other over the control of electronic rights."

Among many comments mentioned by Penny Pagano is the one of Dan Carlinksy, writer and vice president of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, in New York.

"'The electronic explosion has changed the entire nature of the business,' Carlinsky says. In the past, articles sold to a periodical essentially 'turned into a pumpkin with no value' once they were published. 'But the electronic revolution has extended the shelf life of content of periodicals. You can now take individual articles and put them into a virtual bookstore or put them on a virtual newsstand.'

The second major change in recent years, he says, is 'an increasing trend to more and more publications being owned by fewer larger and larger companies that tend to be international media conglomerates. They are connected corporately with an enormous array of enterprises that might be interested in secondary use of materials'."

To get secondary rights, "the National Writers Union has created a new agency called the Publication Rights Clearinghouse (PRC). Based on the music industry's ASCAP [American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers], PRC will track individual transactions and pay out royalties to writers for secondary rights for previously used articles. For $20, freelance writers who have secondary rights to previously published articles can enroll in PRC. These articles become part of a PRC file that is licensed to database companies." Several companies participate, including UnCover, both a fax reprint service and the world's largest database of magazine and journal articles.

9.3. Multimedia Convergence

Because of computerization and communication technologies, previously distinct information-based industries, such as printing and publishing, graphic design, the media, sound recording and film-making, are converging into one industry. Information is their common product.

Wilfred Kiboro, Managing Director and Chief Executive of Nation Printers and
Publishers Ltd, Kenya, made the following comments during the ILO Symposium on
Multimedia Convergence held in January 1997:

"In content creation in the multimedia environment, it is very difficult to know who the journalist is, who the editor is, and who the technologist is that will bring