New edition of Richard Arnold's Performers' Rights out NOW

Are you looking for some last-minute Christmas present for a special person? 

Then here's the perfect idea. 

The 1709 Blog has in fact just found out that the 5th edition of the most authoritative work on Performers' Rights has finally been released. 

The author, The Hon Mr Justice Arnold, requires no introduction.

According to the publisher's website, this essential handbook for practitioners advising performers, their representatives, exploiters of performers’ rights and their representatives provides an in-depth treatment of performers’ statutory rights under Part II of the 1988 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act and subsequent legislation, together with broad coverage of the legal position of performers more generally.

Overall, Performers' Rights:

·        Explains the nature and duration of performers’ rights, including the key case law

·        Sets out the key definitions, including “performers”, “ownership” and “broadcasting”, as well as the categories of live performance

·        Explains the relationship between performers’ rights and recording rights

·        Discusses each type of infringement of performers’ rights – and the available defences

·        Explains proceedings – who can sue, who can be sued, and where – and the different remedies available

·        Covers moral rights as they apply to performers

·        Explains the various criminal offences

·        Analyses the contracts available to protect rights, including assignment and licences

·        Covers other protections, such as authorship, copyright in sound recordings and films, and passing off

·        Sets out the protection in key countries, including Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Jamaica, Kenya, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Singapore, South Africa and USA

·        Reproduces the relevant parts of legislation, rules, regulations, treaties, conventions and agreements

Classic reaction when your
child does NOT receive
a copyright book at Christmas

What has happened since the 4th edition was released?

·        The Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performances

·        Amendments to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 made by the Copyright and Rights in Performances (Research, Education, Libraries and Archives) Regulations 2014, the Copyright and Rights in Performances (Disability) Regulations 2014, the Copyright (Public Administration) Regulations 2014, the Copyright and Rights and Performances (Quotation and Parody) Regulations 2014 and the Copyright and Rights in Performances (Licensing of Orphan Works) Regulations 2014 

·        Other legislative developments such as the Copyright (Regulation of Licensing Bodies) Regulations 2014 and the Copyright and Rights in Performances (Extended Collective Licensing) Regulations 2014

·        The case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union concerning communication to the public

·        The case law of the Court of Justice of the EU concerning exceptions and limitations

·        Domestic case law including Henderson v All Around the World Recordings [here]

The Future of the Music Business: a new edition

Does the music business have a future? Despite all the gloom and doom, one would like to think that the answer is an emphatic "yes", if only because  The Future of the Music Business, by US entertainment attorney Steve Gordon, is now in its fourth (and, one guesses, by no means its final) edition.

According to the book's website:

" ... the purpose of the fourth edition of the FUTURE OF THE MUSIC BUSINESS ... is to provide a road map for success in the music business – not only for musicians, songwriters and producers – but also for entrepreneurs and industry professionals. Technology has profoundly changed the recording industry and the music publishing business. Entirely new rules, business practices and models have emerged at breathtaking speed including in the several years since the publication of the third edition in 2008. The fourth edition explains the most recent rules, business practices and models, and offers insights into how to take advantage of them.

The purpose of this website is to update the book and to promote it to readers who have not bought a copy by offering segments of the book’s contents including the Foreword by Amanda Palmer and Table of Contents. ..."

This US book comes out on 20 August and our good friend Amanda Harcourt -- a founder member of this weblog -- contributed a chapter on music licensing in the hope that readers in the USA might remember there is a licensing landscape that stretches beyond the familiar territory of the 50 States.

You can buy this book on Amazon here.

International Copyright Law: text and cases reviewed

International Copyright Law: U.S. and E.U. Perspectives Texts and Cases is the title of a handsome tome compiled by Jane C. Ginsburg (Morton L. Janklow Professor of Literary and Artistic Property Law, Columbia University, School of Law, New York) US and Edouard Treppoz (Professor, University Jean Moulin Lyon 3, France), published by Edward Elgar Publishing a little earlier this year.

According to the publisher's web-blurb:

International copyright law is a complex and evolving field, of manifest and increasing economic significance. Its intellectual challenges derive from the interlocking relationships of multiple international instruments and national or regional laws and judgments.

This ground-breaking casebook provides a comprehensive and comprehensible account of international copyright and neighbouring rights law, from the cornerstone of the 1886 Berne Convention and the Rome Convention of 1961, through to the 1994 TRIPS Agreement and the 1996 and later WIPO Copyright Treaties. It examines how national laws have implemented the international norms, and explores the issues these sources have left ambiguous or unresolved.

Ginsburg and Treppoz, two of the leading lights in international copyright law, bring their expert commentary and provocative questions to judiciously selected extracts from cases, analytical texts, and the texts of the treaties themselves, to develop a deeply nuanced understanding of this field. The approach centres on comprehending the international law and international treaties and, rather than analyzing the treaties in turn and in abstract, offers a concrete issue-by-issue treatment of the subject.

The authors focus principally on WIPO-administered treaties and TRIPS for their international material, thus leaving the Universal Copyright Convention out in the cold -- which is where it is. Included however is the little-known Austro-Sardinian Convention of 1840. The chapters adopt a methodology of addressing first the international source materials, then focusing on relevant provisions of US and European Union law, making allowances where necessary for the fact that there is not always a one-to-one correspondence between the materials contrasted. The authors also supply questions that demand a fairly acute understanding by readers of the issues highlighted in the primary materials (asking for example why a party should wish to bring proceedings in one jurisdiction rather than another). The contents are highly current and include, for example, the 22 January ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union in Case C-419/13 Art & Allposters.

This blogger has never studied or taught international copyright law, either on its own or as a medium for a comparative study of US and EU approaches, though the subject is one that he has encountered on a one-off basis, leaving him with that uncomfortable feeling of having been slightly ambushed, on more times than he cares to recall. This book looks like just the thing he could have done with -- not merely for the content but for the direction of the questions posed.

The paperback version is a pretty hefty volume at xxviii + 849 pages. It's a good deal cheaper than the hardback (full price £45 as against £155 -- would you pay more than £100 for hard covers? -- and available with the publisher's online discount at £36 as against £139.50). The respective hard and soft soft cover ISBNs are 978 1 78347 797 5 and 978 1 78347 799 9. The book's web-page is here.

Harmonising the unharmonisable? Maybe it's not so impossible after all

Harmonising Copyright Law and Dealing With Dissonance: a Framework for Convergence of US and EU law is a slim, attractive volume composed by two of this blogger's friends -- Sheldon W. Halpern (Emeritus Professor of Law, Moritz College of Law, The Ohio State University) and Phillip Johnson (Professor of Commercial Law, Cardiff University, Wales). Another in the seemingly unending sequence of bright and challenging IP books coming off the presses of Edward Elgar Publishing, this is neither textbook nor compendium but a clever, well-researched and constructive text that is enjoyable to read. It would appear to be the child of a happy combination of accurate scholarship and manifest but overstated enthusiasm.

According to the web-blurb:

This insightful study explores the constitutional, institutional, and cultural barriers to harmonisation of the copyright laws of the United States and the European Union [this structural-cultural approach makes a refreshing change from the studies focused on the effects of unharmonised substantive copyright law and the commercial issues surrounding their resolution: this blogger may have missed something, but he doesn't see a large and pre-existing literature on this topic]. It considers these matters in the real world transnational environment in which copyright law operates and suggests that the reality transcends the differences, offering a framework for meaningful harmonisation.

The authors examine in detail and offer a critique of the sporadic and historic attempts at one or another form of harmonisation, via treaty and otherwise, from the creation of a minimal standards regime to the proliferation of substantive treaties. They similarly examine the respective competencies of the US and the EU to adopt a transnational regime, and propose a workable framework consistent with these competencies.

Offering a critical analysis of treaties and other prior attempts at forms of harmonization, this book will have special appeal to governmental and nongovernmental individuals involved in the ongoing efforts of WIPO and the WTO, as well as copyright and intellectual property practitioners with internationally oriented practices.

The must-read bit of this book is Chapter 5, which sketches out the framework for harmonisation and concludes that the obstacles to harmonisation, despite appearances, are more theoretical than real -- and can therefore be overcome.

Bibliographical data: publication date December 2014. x + 195 pages. Hardback ISBN 978 1 78254 418 0, ebook ISBN 978 1 78254 419 7. Price US$110 (online from the publisher, US$99). Web page here.

Economics of Copyright: a new title for students and teachers

Handbook On The Economics Of Copyright: a Guide for Students and Teachers, edited by Richard Watt (Associate Professor of Economics and Finance, University of Canterbury, New Zealand), is the latest Edward Elgar Publishing title to address the point of contact between economics and intellectual property rights. It's a lot shorter than many of the same publisher's sorties into IP-and-economics, some of which go into two vast volumes and have to be driven around in trucks. The content appears to be pretty fresh too; this is not one of those books that turns out to be a collection of previously published "greatest hits" going back 30 years or more.

According to the book's web-blurb:

Featuring expert contributors from around the world, this book offers insight into the vital theoretical and practical aspects of the economics of copyright. Topics discussed include fair use, performers’ rights, copyright and trade, online music streaming, internet piracy, copyright and visual art markets, and open source publishing. In addition to in-depth coverage of these timely topics, the authors also offer insightful predictions and policy recommendations for the future.

Each of the self-contained chapters is written by a distinguished expert and is pitched at a level designed to be accessible to advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students in economics and law. As a whole, the book covers all of the topical content that a student of copyright economics should know. Teachers and lecturers will find all the required material to provide a comprehensive overview of the subject in a single volume. For scholars with a legal background, the book will also act as an effective introduction or refresher in the economic theory underlying copyright.

This book, refreshingly, does indeed include contributions from outside North America, thus addressing one of this blogger's long-standing objections to IP-and-economics titles from the same publishing house that contain only US material but give no indication to that effect for the benefit of prospective readers and purchasers.  Apart from the US and the editor's home turf of New Zealand, contributors to this volume are drawn from Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Italy and the United Kingdom.

While the chapters on the economics side contain a good deal of algebra that will prove challenging for the regular IP lawyer to navigate, the regular legal chapters (supplied by fellow blogger Eleonora, the evergreen Wendy J. Gordon and the perennially entertaining :Paul J. Heald) should lie within both their comfort zones and their pleasure zones.  This blogger has followed Paul's work on the public domain over the years [this blog has followed it too: see posts here and here] and commends it to anyone who has never previously taken the subject seriously.

Bibliographical data: 351 pp, Hardback ISBN 978 1 84980 852 1; ebook ISBN 978 1 84980 853 8. Price $205 (online price $184.50). Web page here.

More copyright creation opportunities for women? Not if they are film directors in Europe

The European Audiovisual Observatory has been at it again.  This time it has published Female directors in European films, which it describes as a "first-of-its-kind pan-European analysis of films by female directors".

This slender (61 page) report reveals that only 16.3% of the European films produced between 2003 and 2012 were shot by female directors -- a percentage which is even lower when it comes to the share of admissions, with European films by women directors accounting for 8.9% of the total admissions in Europe during the same period ["admissions" in this context is not a synonym for "confessions", but rather a reference to the number of viewers admitted to cinemas to watch the films].

The report is available in English with an executive summary in French and German -- something that might make French and German women directors feel even more discriminated against.

You can check out the further particulars of this work and even order it by clicking here [it's a good old-fashioned 484-character URL, so we're not reproducing it in full ...].

Patrons, curators, inventors and thieves

Patrons, curators, inventors and thieves is the title of a book which has just been published by Palgrave Macmillan and carries the subtitle "The storytelling contest of the cultural industries in the digital age."

The author is 1709 Blog friend Jonathan Wheeldon, currently a Chartered Accountant and Visiting Fellow at Henley Business School with an impressive professional background as an executive across a wide range of content industries.

What is this book about? This blogger has not yet had the time to finish reading it, so she will revert to the explanation provided on the publisher's website:

"This book is a rare and unusually reflective insider account of the transformational challenges of the cultural industries over the past 15 years. Opening with a fresh new perspective on music industry history, it explores how the industrial world evolves more by narrative plausibility than by strategic precision, recognizing that corporate identity, purpose and power can be both reinforced and subverted by modifications to various cultural master-plots and their traditional heroes and villains. 

Of most interest are the insights into the strategic struggles faced by corporate managers and by intellectual property policymakers dealing with the seismic new millennium shifts in technology, communications and related social behaviour. Illustrating how a satisfactory 'postprivate' master-narrative of social equality in the digital age has yet to emerge, the book also helps to loosen the industrial-political deadlock in the debate over copyright reform. It is essential reading for anyone who takes an interest in the changing processes of creation, dissemination and industrialization of knowledge and culture."

Copyright Wars on a bigger battlefield

In June 2012 this blog reviewed Hollywood's Copyright Wars: from Edison to the Internet, by Peter Decherney.  A new set of copyright war stories has now been published, The Copyright Wars: Three Centuries of Trans-Atlantic Battle. Its author is Peter Baldwin (Professor of history at the University of California, Los Angeles, Global Distinguished Professor at New York University and author of the captivatingly titled The Narcissism of Minor Differences: How America and Europe Are Alike).  The two tomes should be expected to have some common ground, since both deal with Hollywood, but the battlefield in this volume, as its title suggests, is considerably wider.

This blogger has not yet seen a review copy, so he quotes from the publishers' website:

Today’s copyright wars can seem unprecedented. Sparked by the digital revolution that has made copyright—and its violation—a part of everyday life, fights over intellectual property have pitted creators, Hollywood, and governments against consumers, pirates, Silicon Valley, and open-access advocates. But while the digital generation can be forgiven for thinking the dispute between, for example, the publishing industry and Google is completely new, the copyright wars in fact stretch back three centuries—and their history is essential to understanding today’s battles. The Copyright Wars—the first major trans-Atlantic history of copyright from its origins to today—tells this important story.

Charles Dickens

Peter Baldwin explains why the copyright wars have always been driven by a fundamental tension. Should copyright assure authors and rights holders lasting claims, much like conventional property rights, as in Continental Europe? Or should copyright be primarily concerned with giving consumers cheap and easy access to a shared culture, as in Britain and America? The Copyright Wars describes how the Continental approach triumphed, dramatically increasing the claims of rights holders. The book also tells the widely forgotten [by some, perhaps, but not by anyone who has taken an interest in Charles Dickens] story of how America went from being a leading copyright opponent and pirate in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to become the world’s intellectual property policeman in the late twentieth. As it became a net cultural exporter and its content industries saw their advantage in the Continental ideology of strong authors’ rights, the United States reversed position on copyright, weakening its commitment to the ideal of universal enlightenment—a history that reveals that today’s open-access advocates are heirs of a venerable American tradition.

Published by Princeton University Press, the book's web page is here.

Enabling access to the media: a new title

Enabling Access to the Media for All is a new title from the Council of Europe's European Audiovisual Observatory. According to its publisher,

In today’s ultra-connected world of smartphones, tablets and smart watches, it has never been more important to protect the rights of disabled members of our society to access audiovisual content. Indeed, barrier-free access to audiovisual content is paramount to our fundamental right to freedom of expression and information.

There are other countervailing rights, such as the right to the enjoyment of one's own property -- but this is not the place to mention them, nor is the Observatory the body responsible for them.  The publisher continues with some questions:

But how does guaranteeing maximum access work in practice? What steps have European lawmakers taken, and are taking, to ensure that the 15% of our society with some form of impairment can enjoy optimum access not only to traditional TV, but also the internet and the increasing number of on-demand services? The European Audiovisual Observatory, part of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, examines the current legal state of play in its latest report.

In its slender 43 pages this report is said to cover recent developments on broadcasting legislation concerning, among others, disabled people, covering Albania, Spain, Ireland, Italy, Romania and Slovakia.   Adds the website:

This brand new report’s Related Reporting offers a rich factual overview of recent developments on broadcasting and copyright legislation concerning people with disabilities, and of recent case law on media and disabilities.

More information is available here.

Comic Art, Creativity And The Law: a book notice

Apologies to readers of Art & Artifice for the cross-post (a somewhat longer version of this notice was posted there earlier today), but here's a book that is of interest to copyright lawyers and owners, as well as to those whose focus is primarily on art. The book in question is Comic Art, Creativity And The Law, by Marc H. Greenberg (Professor of Law, Golden Gate University School of Law, US).  This work has been recently published by Anglo-American publishing house Edward Elgar as part of its ever-increasing IP list, as part of its Law and Entrepreneurship series.

According to the publisher of this essentially United States-focused work:

The characters and stories found in comic art play a dominant role in contemporary popular culture throughout the world. In this first-of-its-kind work, Comic Art, Creativity and the Law examines how law and legal doctrine shapes the creative process as applied to comic art.

The book examines the impact of contract law, copyright law (including termination rights, parody and ownership of characters), tax law and obscenity law has on the creative process. It considers how these laws enhance and constrain the process of creating comic art by examining the effect their often inconsistent and incoherent application has had on the lives of creators, retailers and readers of comic art. It uniquely explains the disparate results in two key comic book parody cases, the Winter Brothers case and the Air Pirates case, offering an explanation for the seemingly inconsistent results in those cases. Finally, it offers a detailed discussion and analysis of the history and operation of the ‘work for hire’ doctrine in copyright law and its effect on comic art creators.

Designed for academics, practitioners, students and fans of comic art, the book offers proposals for changes in those laws that constrain the creative process, as well as a glimpse into the future of comic art and the law.

This is an enjoyable and thoughtful book, part legal analysis, part history, part speculation and part personal reflection. The impact of the law on the fruits of creation is easier to assess than its impact on those aspects of creativity which it may deter or stifle, and the use of comic art as a powerful form of parody, satire or social comment keeps returning it to the point at which freedom of expression meets countervailing rights and interests -- but this book is neither repetitive nor preachy, even though Marc Greenberg never leaves it to his readers to guess his thoughts and feelings.

Bibliographic data: hardback ISBN 978 1 78195 492 8; ebook ISBN 978 1 78195 493 5. Hardback price£70 (online from the publisher, £63). Web page here.

Digital Copyright Law: a new title

Digital Copyright: Law and Practice (Fourth Edition) has recently been published by Hart Publishing of Oxford and Portland, Oregon.  The author, Simon Stokes, is a partner in law firm Blake Lapthorn and a bit of a scholar too, being a Visiting Research Fellow in the Bournemouth Law School.  Simon has actually been quite a contributor to IP literature, being also the author of another Hart title, Art and Copyright (details here and noted by Art & Artifice here) and that rara avis, a book on the topic of the artist's entitlement to receive a proportion of the proceeds of resale of an original artwork -- Artist's Resale Right (Droit de Suite): UK Law and Practice (published by the Institute of Art & Law, here).

This is what the publisher has to say about Simon's latest effort:

The first edition of this book in 2002 was the first UK text to examine digital copyright together with related areas such as performers' rights, moral rights, database rights and competition law as a subject in its own right. Updated editions have included the UK implementation of the 2001 Information Society Directive and commentary on user-generated content and the development of Web 2.0 and beyond. Now in its fourth edition, the book has been updated and revised to take account of legal and policy developments in copyright law and related areas, in particular the increasing role of the Court of Justice of the European Union in shaping EU copyright law.

The book helps put digital copyright law and policy into perspective and provides practical guidance for those creating or exploiting digital content or technology, whether in academia, the software, information, publishing and creative industries, and other areas of the economy. The focus is on the specifics of the law in this area together with practical aspects, including precedents and precedent checklists dealing with common digital copyright transactions. The latest edition has been expanded to include a discussion of Open Access, eBooks and app development and licensing. Both academics and practitioners will find the book an invaluable guide to this rapidly developing field of law.

If ever there was a subject in which a book could be pretty well guaranteed to be out of date before it was published, digital copyright is that subject. Readers of this weblog will be only too aware of the surge of new case law in the past year or so, while this book is mainly current to the end of 2012 (with some updating to June 2013).  Curiously, in much the same way as technological developments gallop ahead of the law, legal developments tend to gallop ahead of practice -- and the most important parts of this book, those that alert the reader to problems and how to address them, are in the main still highly relevant. The author has also provided a good deal of patiently-worded text that does not assume too great a degree of knowledge on the part of the reader, both with regard to the technology and in relation to the law. Even if, as is inevitable, things just carry on changing, this small and manageable book is a very good place from which to commence one's pursuit of this topic.

Bibliographic details: hardback, xxvii + 262 pages. ISBN 9781849464024. Price: £45. Book's web page here.

Sorrow will come: a new book

Here's a new book by Jeremy Grice: it's intriguingly entitled "Sorrow will come in the end", it bears the tagline "Legal case studies in the music, theatre and entertainment industries".  This is what the author -- who is Head of Music, Theatre and Entertainment at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts -- has to say about its title and its content:

"Sorrow will come in the end" is the title of a song written in 1997 by Steven Morrissey, following his defeat in the UK Court in Joyce v Morrissey. Its angry lyrics offer a message to his victorious opponent:

You pleaded and squealed and you think you’ve won
But sorrow will come to you in the end.

It finishes somewhat chillingly:

A man who slits throats has time on his hands and I’m gonna get you So don’t close your eyes, don’t ever close your eyes.

Unsurprisingly, Morrissey’s record label, Island Records, withdrew the track from the album before distribution.

Not every court case in the music, theatre and entertainment industry ends in such vitriol. Indeed the combatants even get back together some times. But there are always lessons to be learned. This website examines high profile disputes such as Joyce v Morrissey. Such disputes are often settled before the case reaches court; often the settlements will reflect the legal merits of the different sides, but at times it may be a reflection of financial muscle and/or bravado. This site focuses on UK cases which actually reached court before being resolved. It examines the primary source of court transcripts which explain the decisions, explains the background to the case and analyses the judgment. It highlights the legal principles which were under examination, evaluates the impact of the cases for the music, theatre and entertainment industries, and discusses what can be learned. The key legal principles illustrated in each case are highlighted in the titles.

The book itself, being effectively the book of the website, is in the sort of format that this blogger is increasingly growing to appreciate. It's small, light, with large print and no footnotes.  There's enough law to justify the decision of any lawyer to read it, but enough factual narrative to let you read it without letting the law get in the way.  The time-chart of the key elements of the Beatles/Apple trade mark dispute, spanning 45 years, make you feel pretty old if you can remember when it all started.  Not all the cases that feature here are copyright cases, but copyright lies at the heart of most of them, and is rarely very far from where all the action is.

You can purchase this book via Amazon here.

ALAI Study Days 2010 -- papers now published

ALAI Study Days 2010 Vienna - The Duration of Copyright and Related Rights has now been published by Medien und Recht. You can check out all the details here.  The contents are as follows:

The Duration of Copyright and Related Rights

- Michel Walter: Historical Perspectives regarding the Duration of Authors’ Rights
- Convergence of Term Systems (Introduction) (Engl./French/Span.)
- Silke von Lewinski: The Framework of the International Copyright Treaties and Comparative Overview of the Terms granted in National Law (General Report) (Engl./French/Span.)

The Proper Term of Protection of Authors’ Rights

- Carlos Fernándes Ballesteros: The Proper Term of Protection: 50 – 70 – or beyond? (Engl./French/Span.)
- Marshall Leaffer: The US Perspective – Eldred’s Progeny (Engl./French)
- Ejan Mackaay: The Economics of Life – Reflections on the Term of Copyright (Engl./French)
- Ysolde Gendreau: Termination of Contracts and Reversionary Right (Engl./French)

Related Rights’ Terms of Protection

- Thomas Dreier: Framework of the International Treaties and Comparative Overview of the Terms granted in National Law (General Report) (Engl./French/Span.)
- Shira Perlmutter: The European Commission’s Initiative: Concern of the (proposed) Term Extension – Status of Legislation (Engl./French)
- Bernd Hugenholtz: Fair Concern or Fruit of Industry Lobbying? (Engl./French)
- Tilo Gerlach: The Performing Artists’ View (Engl./French)
- Margarida Almeida Rocha: Balancing Author’s Rights and Neighbouring Rights (Engl./French)
- Abel Martín Villarejo: Scope of Extension – Audiovisual Artists (Engl./French/Span.)
- Pál Tomori: Transitional and Accompanying Provisions (Engl./French)

Further Approximation or Harmonization of the Duration of Authors’ Rights on the Regional and/or on the International Level

- Samuel Ricketson: Further Approximation (Minimum Term) or Need for Harmonization in the Digital Age? (Introduction) (Engl./French/Span.)
- Mira Sundara Rajan: Collaborative Works: The Complex Case of Copyright Term in Film (Engl./French)
- Astri M. Lund: War-related Extensions of Terms: A Possible Obstacle to Further Approximation of the Duration of Authors’ Rights? (Engl./French)
- Miyo Tonami: Moral Rights (Engl./French)
- Albrecht Haller: Posthumous Works between Authors’ Rights and Related Rights (Engl./French)
- Séverine Dusollier: Technical Measures and Duration of Authors’ Rights: A field of Conflict? (Engl./French)

Transitional Law and Prolongation of the Terms of Protection

- Mihály Ficsor: Article 18 of the Berne Convention and Section 514 of US Uruguay Round Agreement Act in the Light of the Golan case (Engl./French)
- Jane Ginsburg: The French Cour de Cassation reconciles Berne Convention Article 18 (1) and 5 (2) (Engl./French)
- Valérie-Laure Benabou: Transitional law and treatment of aliens – The European Court of Justice’s judgment in the “Sony/Falcon/Bob Dylan” case (Engl./French)
- Ramón Casas Vallés: Contracts Concluded and Prolongation of Protection – a Neglected Issue (Engl./French/Span.)

Domaine Public Payant and the Socio-Cultural Function of Authors’ Rights

- Delia Lipszyc: Different Systems of Domaine Public Payant (General Report) (Engl./French/Span.)
- Adolf Dietz: A Modern Concept for the Right of the Community of Authors and Performers (Paying Public Domain) (Engl./French/Span.)
- Igor Gliha: Domaine Public Payant – Few Doubts and Questions (Engl./French)
- Ryu Kojima: Duration of Copyright: From the Perspective of Cultural Policy (Engl./French)
- Gernot Graninger: The Socio-cultural Function of Collecting Societies (Engl./French)
- Gerhard Ruiss: What is to follow Expired Rights? (Engl./French)

100 years of Imperial Copyright: a book review

A Shifting Empire: 100 Years of the Copyright Act 1911, edited by Uma Suthersanen and Ysolde Gendreau, is a most unusual book.  Uma (Professor in International Intellectual Property Law, Queen Mary, University of London) and Ysolde (Professor of Law, Université de Montréal, Canada) have contrived to do something this blogger would have thought next to impossible: to revive interest in the fabled Imperial Copyright Act by framing it within a legal and historical context of a world that continued to change -- a world which was initially too small and unsophisticated for the copyright regime of the 1911 Act but which eventually matured and outgrew it.  As the publisher's blurb says:

"The 1911 Copyright Act, often termed the ‘Imperial Copyright Act’, changed the jurisprudential landscape in respect of copyright law, not only in the United Kingdom but also within the then Empire. This book offers a bird’s eye perspective of why and how the first global copyright law launched a new order, often termed the ‘common law copyright system’.

This carefully researched and reflective work draws upon some of the best scholarship from Australia, Canada, India, Israel, Jamaica, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa and United Kingdom. The authors – academics and practitioners alike – situate the Imperial Copyright Act 1911 within their national laws, both historically and legally. In doing so, the book queries the extent to which the ethos and legacy of the 1911 Copyright Act remains within indigenous laws.

A Shifting Empire offers a unique global, historical view of copyright development and will be a valuable resource for policy-makers, academic scholars and members of international copyright associations".

This blogger warmed to the book more than he expected to, possibly because -- in the days of his youth when he worked within the terms of the UK's  'modern' Copyright Act 1956 -- references to the Imperial Act imparted a sort of toxicity which is often found in the company of antiquated and increasingly irrelevant chunks of dead legislation. This book, while allowing the contributors the proper freedom of responsible criticism, lets the reader appreciate that this Act was once young, vibrant, commercially sound and full of meaning.

The list of contributors is both impressive and apt.  Given his interest in colonial copyright, Michael Birnhack must have been the most obvious name on the roll-call; Sam Ricketson too, with his Australian pedigree and his penchant for the patient historical analysis. The others are excellent too and, for this blogger, the eye-opener was Dianne Daley's chapter on Jamaica, a small nation about whose copyright affairs he was hitherto sadly ignorant. This book is never going to be a Harry Potter, but wouldn't it be grand if its sales matched its interest value.

Bibliographic data: Publication date March 2013.  ix + 251 pages.. Hardback ISBN 978 1 78100 308 4; ebook ISBN 978 1 78100 309 1. Price $115.00 ( online price $103.50). Web page here.

The challenge of the new

Copyright and the Challenge of the New, edited by: Brad Sherman and Leanne Wiseman, is the 25th and latest in the line of titles in the Wolters Kluwer Information Law Series, which has both led and reflected thought in that field for many a long year under the inspired guidance of Professor Bernt Hugenholtz.  This collection of essays, despite its title, is as much about the reassuring comfort of the old as the challenge of the new: in retrospect one cannot but admire the versatility of copyright in adapting itself to so many new technologies by simultaneously marketing itself as the friend of the creator, the investor and even the user.  It is only really in the past 20 years or so that the increasing transparency of a world driven by internet access and the social media has caused an increasingly knowledgeable world to recognise both the spin and the reality that lies behind it -- for better or worse.

But what do the publishers say about this compilation?  According to the book's web page:

"Copyright is not, as is often thought, something that is periodically ‘extended’ to cover a new field or medium; rather, copyright redefines itself whenever its efficacy is challenged. While many factors have contributed to this process, the most consistent has been the challenges created by new technologies. The contributing authors build upon this insight to show that copyright law is, and has always been, a creature of technology. Each chapter focuses on a specific technology or group of technologies – photography, telegraphy, the phonogram, radio, film, the photocopier, the tape player, television, and computer programs – emphasizing the changes that each technology instigated and the challenges and opportunities it created. Perhaps the most profound insight of this extraordinary book is the authors’ claim – ably supported in a series of intriguing chapters – that the way the law responds and reacts to new technologies is always mediated by the political, social, economic, and cultural environment in which the interaction occurs. For example, these chapters describe and explain how:

• statutory schemes of remuneration arose from failures to effectively police new forms of piracy; 

• persistent litigation and lobbying by copyright owners forces legislatures and courts to devise new laws; 

• content (e.g., sporting events) generates new rules of access to broadcasts; and ‘fair copying’ (e.g., by libraries) is the necessary exception that proves the rule.

As well as providing insight into the ways that copyright law interacted with old technologies when they were new, the book also offers important insights into problems and issues currently confronting copyright law and policy such as the appropriate scope of copyright and the relation between copyright and the public interest. With the broad perspectives opened by these essays, academics, practitioners and policymakers in the field will find themselves well equipped to deal with the problems that will inevitably be created by technologies in the future".

Contributors to this collection include Lionel Bently, Graeme Austin and Pamela Samuelson (who rightly describes the use made of copyright in the clumsily inappropriate field of computer program protection as a genuine success story). Kathy Bowrey's chapter on The World Daguerreotyped was the one that most appealed to this blogger, who is currently going through a bit of a photographic phase right now, but he has not yet had the courage to face up to Leanne Wiseman's contribution on photocopying since he still bears the scars of a far too detailed scholarly lecture on that topic which he had to attend some years ago, delivered in a droning monotone by a professor who read from his text and was impervious to coffee breaks.

Bibliographic data: hardback, xii + 273 pages. ISBN 9789041136695. Price:US$ 135 .Web page here.

Colonial copyright: read all about it!

Colonial Copyright: Intellectual Property in Mandate Palestine, by Michael D. Birnhack, has just been published by Oxford University Press. This blogger has not yet seen it, though he is sure that a review copy will soon be available to the same publisher's Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (JIPLP). When this happens, 1709 Blog readers will be alerted so they'll have a good chance of getting their review request accepted. If you don't yet know Michael, he's a Professor of Law, Tel-Aviv University, Israel, and a not inconsiderable copyright scholar.

The book is quite unusual, and not a little intriguing. According to the publishers:

"When the British Empire enacted copyright law for its colonies and called it colonial, or Imperial, copyright, it had its own interests in mind. Deconstructing the imperial policy regarding copyright offers a startling glimpse into how this law was received in the colonies themselves. Offering the first in-depth study from the point of view of the colonized, this book suggests a general model of Colonial Copyright as it was understood as the intersection of legal transplants, colonial law, and the particular features of copyright, especially authorship.

Taking as a case study the story of Mandate Palestine (1917-1948), the book details the untold history of the copyright law that became the basis of Israeli law, and still is the law in the Palestinian Authority. It queries the British motivation in enacting copyright law, traces their first, indifferent reaction, and continues with the gradual absorption into the local legal and cultural systems. In the modern era copyright law is at the forefront of globalization but this was no less true when colonial copyright first emerged. By shining a light on the introduction and reception of copyright law in Mandate Palestine, the book illuminates the broader themes of copyright law: the questions surrounding the concept of authorship; the relationship between copyright and the demands of progress; and the complications of globalization".

More details of the book can be found on the publisher's website here.

US copyright law in all its simplicity

Copyright Law is one of the shortest and neatest titles on copyright law that I've seen in a little while -- and there is an admirable tidiness about this book.  The authors, Jane C. Ginsburg and Robert A. Gorman, are not unknown in intellectual property circles and have long passed the point at which they need to prove themselves. In some respects, the mark of a genuine scholar is not the degree of complexity with which a subject can be analysed but the degree of clarity and simplicity with which often complex notions can be conveyed to the intelligent but unfamiliar reader. This phenomenon is well known in other spheres of human endeavour, in tales of how Giotto (some say Michelangelo) was able to draw without assistance a perfect circle, or of the precision required of the cook to execute the perfect soft-boiled egg.  Sadly, in intellectual property circles too few people -- professors, judges, legislators and now PhD students -- have appreciated the power of this message. But for anyone wanting an accessible yet thought-provoking introduction to US copyright law, which is literally a law unto itself, this book is is definitely more Giotto than Gormenghast.

The book's web-blurb explains what this book seeks to achieve:

"The text provides a clear and thorough exploration of the doctrinal and policy issues in American copyright law in a style accessible to both new and advanced intellectual property students, as well as to practitioners. The book covers every major topic in basic copyright courses: the history of copyright, ownership and duration, formalities, exclusive rights of the copyright holder, fair use, civil and criminal enforcement of copyright law, and federal preemption of state law. Beyond that, the authors address the major new issues that have emerged over the past two decades, including the rules of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act regarding circumvention of technological protections of copyrighted materials, and the principles of secondary liability, both in their basic form and as developed through application of the DMCA to internet service providers. Moreover, attention is given to the important points at which U.S. copyright law intersects with international intellectual property treaties.

Each chapter includes concise summaries and discussions of significant cases, ideal for gaining a complete overview of the doctrine and of the statutory provisions, those that are written with a broad brush as well as those written with painstaking detail. Finally, the book suffuses this doctrinal and statutory analysis with illuminating discussions of the public-policy issues -– from the earliest and most fundamental to those that are at today’s cutting edge -- that help inform and shape the development of copyright".

This book, which part of the publishers' Concepts and Insights series, certainly lives up to this description.

Bibliographic data. publisher: Foundation Press/Thomson Reuters. Paperback, xv + 309 pages. ISBNs 1599412519 and 13: 9781599412511. Web page here.

Formalities in Copyright Law: a new book

One of the most surprising book titles to cross this reviewer's desk in recent times is Formalities in Copyright Law. An analysis of their history, rationales and possible future, by Stef van Gompel. The surprise is that, having been schooled in the prevalent sentiment of the past half century that formalities are a historical relic, he has found in this book a well-argued case for their fresh and objective evaluation, if not their immediate relevance. According to the publishers (Wolters Kluwer Law & Business):

"At present, copyright is ‘automatic’. From the moment an original work is created, the author enjoys all the benefits that copyright protection entails, without the need to complete a registration, deposit the work, mark it with a copyright notice, or comply with any other statutorily prescribed formality. However, the digital revolution has caused a paradigm shift in the way copyright-protected works are created and consumed. Copyright law is now facing significant challenges arising from the need to establish legal certainty over copyright claims, improve rights clearance, and enhance the free flow of information. Inevitably, proposals to introduce formalities in copyright law (or reintroduce them, as the absence of formalities has not always been the norm) have risen to prominence in legal debate. This book examines whether reintroducing copyright formalities is legally feasible. Based on a comprehensive and thorough analysis of copyright formalities, it sets out to establish the extent to which the current copyright system allows for their reintroduction. To this end, the author describes the role and functions of formalities, revisits the history of formalities at the national and international levels, examines the scope of the international prohibition on formalities, and scrutinizes the rationales behind this prohibition, including an in-depth examination of the validity of the argument that copyright is a ‘natural right’ and therefore should be protected independently of formalities.

The author skilfully evaluates and contrasts the conflicting theories according to which formalities, on the one hand, add legal certainty to claims on the ownership of property, and, on the other, hamper individual authors from seeking adequate protection for their works. This book makes an important contribution to legal science by answering questions that so far have been neglected or only marginally addressed. To the degree that current copyright law permits reintroducing formalities, the author posits the specifications that will determine to a great extent what role and functions they may eventually fulfil: depending on the aims to be achieved, lawmakers must choose which types of formalities shall be imposed, and what their legal consequences shall be. This book goes a long way towards reinforcing the foundation for those decisions".

This book certainly delivers what it promises, though the author perhaps cautiously limits himself to the legal, philosophical and theoretical aspects of his subject. What would be fun would be to project his analyses into real-life scenarios and to show how reintroduced formalities, in respect of different types of copyright subject matter and different markets, might be handled by users of the new technologies -- both commercial and social -- which enable copyright owners, collecting societies, businesses and private users to identify works and their owners and then to monitor or exploit them.

Bibliographic data: hardback, xiv + 346 pages. ISBN 9041134182; ISBN 13: 9789041134189. Price £95. Book's web page here.

Privilege, Property ... and perhaps a Xmas present

There's a new copyright book just coming out -- Privilege and Property. Essays on the History of Copyright, edited by Ronan Deazley, Martin Kretschmer and Lionel Bently. It's published by Open Book Publishers and comes in hardback, paperback and digital download formats. If you don't want to buy it, you will have the option of reading it online free of charge. It's not yet published, but will be very, very soon (click here) for contents, author list and other details.

I haven't seen it yet, but I'm intrigued both by the prospect of a good, scholarly read and by the business model on which this title is based. With luck, it should maximise exposure of the contributors to their readers while also capturing a chance to secure some income from reasonable pricing plus a flexible set of options such as only the internet can provide. This could be the ideal Christmas stocking filler for the copyright enthusiast who has everything ...