The question ‘what can we control?’ underpins both the information society and the knowledge economy, and represents the maturity of information technology. Most importantly, it signals a transition from a world that saw economic value in terms of atoms to a world which values information in bits. This chapter examines this transition and the role of bits in the information society. It first provides an overview of bits and their place in the digitization process. The chapter then looks at the advent of digital music and other digital goods such as digital video and electronic books. It also considers the shift from rivalrous goods to nonrivalrous goods before concluding with a discussion of the legal challenge of the information society.
Chapter
1. The world of bits
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17. Enforcement issues
This chapter considers two main topics. It first examines the provisions of the EU’s Copyright in the Information Society Directive, which sets out to amend some provisions of copyright law better to fit the realities of an online world. It then looks at some of the issues associated with enforcement of copyright, considering the extent to which intermediaries such as Internet Service Providers (ISPs) might be held liable for infringing acts committed by their users. Attention is increasingly paid to the possibility that rights owners might proceed against users whose actions infringe their rights. In many cases this will require the cooperation of ISPs and a major component of the Digital Economy Act 2010 is concerned with the manner in which this process might be managed.
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13. Databases
This chapter examines database right, a sui generis form of intellectual property protection, the roots of which are to be found in copyright law. It first compares copyright and database rights before turning to cases in which the UK’s Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 was applied to listings of information in the form of a simple database. The chapter then considers the European Union’s Database Directive and analyses the Fixtures Marketing, British Horseracing Board Ltd v William Hill, and Football Dataco v Yahoo! cases. Finally, it looks at databases, along with the intellectual property issues that they generate, within the framework of the information society.
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8. Intellectual property rights and the information society
This chapter examines intellectual property rights (IPRs) in relation to the information society. The discussion begins with an overview of IPRs involving copyright, patents, trade marks, and the database right, and then considers IPRs and the process of digitization within the framework of cyberlaw. It mentions the criticism received for overprotecting content or systems in the information society and discusses the idea of an over-reliance on models developed for a previous age and for different challenges in dealing with the information economy and society. It concludes by highlighting the tension between the information society and the intellectual property industry in terms of what each wants and expects: liberty, free use of content, and unfettered free expression for the former; and protection, control over use, and abuse and reward for the latter.
