Suchergebnisse

"The scope and legitimacy of private copying is one of the most highly contested issues in digital copyright. While private copying was practiced in the analogue world too, it was tolerated due to its minimal impact and to the difficulties related to its monitoring. Yet, its permissibility is ambiguous in the digital environment; this is because digitalisation has enabled ordinary individuals to make and share copies of copyrighted works easily, for no cost and with no degradation in terms of quality. Scholars and lawmakers stress the decisive role of private copying in striking an adequate balance between the freedom to use copyrighted works and the protection of the rightholders' interests in the digital world. In Europe, private copying is explicitly permitted under Article 5(2)(b) of Directive 2001/29/EC on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society and the national laws that implement it. Despite being a lawful activity in the great majority of European Member States, digital private copying remains a highly controversial phenomenon and the scope of digital private copying remains legally unclear.This book offers an original analysis of private copying and determines the actual scope of private copying as an area of end-user freedom in the digital world. In particular, it examines the permissibility of digital private copying with a view to clarify the legal uncertainty as to its scope. The basis of this examination is Article 5(2)(b) of the Information Society Directive. Under this Article, the use of copyrighted works ought to be 'private' and 'non-commercial' to be permitted; these concepts, however, do not translate well, and tend to be less sharp, in the digital environment. Even though their meaning seems clear and self-evident, their legal boundaries are in practice very vague and not settled by law"--

This essay employs pornography to explore the politics of race, gender, and sexuality at play in mimetic performances of Bill Cosby's The Cosby Show. Focusing on Not the Cosbys XXX (2009), a pornographic parody of the sitcom, pornography is shown to be a venue that lays bare the politics of race, sexuality, and gender that energize cultural practices of mimesis. In mimicking The Cosby Show, Not the Cosbys XXX reveals the racial, sexual, and class politics of authenticity critical to mimesis as a salient technology for the (re)production of blackness in visual culture. Pornography's spectacular multiplex mimetic performance, which the author terms pornmimicry, brings the quotidian dynamics of mimicry into focus as a primary mode of identificatory performance. More than a frame to elucidate racial sexual performance in pornography, pornmimicry helps us to understand the concomitant pleasure (and violence) bound with the broader cultural repetition of blackness as itself a mimetic practice.

Patent law is virtually alone in intellectual property (IP) in punishing
independent development. To infringe a copyright or trade secret,
defendants must copy the protected IP from the plaintiff, directly or
indirectly. But patent infringement requires only that the defendant's
product falls within the scope of the patent claims. Not only doesn't the
defendant need to intend to infringe, but the defendant may be entirely
unaware of the patent or the patentee and still face liability.

Nonetheless, copying does play a role in some subsidiary patent doctrines.
For example, the question of whether patent damages should be set in order
to deter infringement depends critically on whether infringers are in fact
aware they are infringing, or at least that they are using the plaintiff's
technology. Copying - or at least intent to infringe - is also an element
of claims for indirect infringement. The definition of "willful
infringement" also turns on the question of culpability, at least in the
popular understanding of that term. More significantly, the rhetoric of
patent law (and of IP law more generally) often seems to presuppose that
defendants in patent cases are in fact engaged in copying. Similarly, the
outcome of public policy debates over patent reform may well turn on the
perception of patent infringers as either bad actors or as innocent
businesspeople who accidentally ran afoul of a patent.

Unfortunately, no one seems to know whether patent infringement defendants
are in fact unscrupulous copyists or independent developers. In this paper,
we seek to answer that question. Because copying is not an element of any
patent cause of action, courts do not normally make explicit findings as to
whether defendants have copied. Instead, we turn to a variety of proxies to
try to identify the subset of cases in which copying is alleged or proven.
We look both at the allegations made in a random sample of complaints and
at the treatment of copying in recent reported decisions. We find that a
surprisingly small percentage of patent cases involve even allegations of
copying, much less proof of copying. Copying in patent law seems to be the
exception, not the rule.

Copying, Creativity and Copyright – by Professor Ronan Deazley (Queen's University Belfast) and CREATe researcher Bartolomeo Meletti – offers insights into the creative process behind their award-winning film The Adventure of the Girl with the Light Blue Hair, and makes the case for understanding copying as a positive phenomenon in helping us learn and innovate, develop and engage with others. Copying plays a crucial role at all stages of our development as human beings, from DNA replication to the way in which physical synchronicity helps us establish connections and relationships with friends and family, and beyond. Copying can also facilitate freedom of expression and political engagement, by enabling people and communities across the globe come together and speak with one voice. Consider, for example the global response to the killings in Paris at the offices of the Charlie Hebdo magazine on 7 January 2015. Three simple words – Je Suis Charlie – have been copied (creatively and otherwise) and re-copied millions of times all over the world to commemorate those who lost their lives during that attack. This is copying as remembrance, free speech, solidarity and protest.