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From a strict technological perspective copyright holders can today truly enforce their rights ex ante by creating closed environments in which the consumption of digital works is strictly controlled by DRM systems. The scope of such control is however usually attributable to a given business model rather than legal compliance because the copyright framework (and particularly Art. 6 InfoSoc Directive or Art. 11 WCT) does not regulate the use of self-enforcement technology other than generally prohibiting others from circumventing it. Although such protection of DRM systems is, arguably, needed to deter piracy and encourage rightholders to digitally distribute content, once a digital work has been acquired from a (legitimate) source, there is little to nothing that an acquirer (consumer) can do to arrange consumption around their own preferences. Instead, their consumption is subject to complicated, sometimes equivocal, terms regulating the legal relationship and device limitations which are imposed by the DRM system. The reasonable expectations of acquirers can often get misaligned with what they are actually allowed to do (both legally and technologically) and potential remedies available vary across the EU. Copyright law, both international and EU, does currently little to address this and to maintain a balance between the legitimate interests of rightholders and the legitimate interests of bona fide digital consumers (note for example the discretionary character of Art. 6(4) paragraph 2). Against this background is a framework of consumer protection law whose underlying aim is indeed to maintain a balance between contracting parties where one is in a clearly weaker (bargaining) position. The intersection of copyright and consumer protection law is however especially problematic because not only is there insufficient, or a general lack of subject-specific, legislation but, high costs of litigation in conjunction with small sums relating to disputes do not incentivise pursuing legal action. This potentially creates market failures on many levels and reinforces the unrestricted use of DRM systems, even though certain informational requirements were introduced by the Consumer Rights Directive in 2011. Although the EU Commission's copyright reform (DSM Agenda)in this context is commendable to the extent that it purports to encapsulate digital consumers into the consumer protection framework (proposal for a Directive on the supply of digital content) and clearly fill an existing gap, the question that transpires is whether the response ought lie in the 'simple' modernisation of consumer protection law only or instead in the clearer alignment of consumer protection law and copyright law (such as is indirectly done in the current proposal for a Regulation ensuring the cross-border portability of online content services), for example through more direct regulation of the use of DRM systems. The paper addresses consumer expectations and the change in the consumption pattern before the arrival of the 'digital market proper', the functioning and use of DRM systems in the 'digital market proper', the regulation of the use of DRM systems in copyright law, and finally the EU Commissions recent proposals in light of some of the failures of the legal framework concerning the use of DRM. See generally: Kubesch, A.S., Wicker, S., Digital Rights Management: The Cost to Consumers (2015) 103(5) Proceedings of the IEEE 726 Dussolier, S., The protection of technological measures: Much ado about nothing or silent remodelling of copyright? In Dreyfuss, R.C. and Ginsburg, J.C. (eds), Intellectual Property at the Edge. The Contested Contours of IP, Cambridge University Press (2015), pp.253-268 Loos, M., et. al., Analysis of the applicable legal frameworks and suggestions for the contours of a model system of consumer protection in relation to digital content contracts, Final Report Digital Content Contracts for Consumers, CSECL, IViR and ACLE, 2011, Chapter 6 Bradgate, R., Consumer Rights in Digital Products, Research and Analysis Report, Department for Business Innovation and Skills, 2010 European Commission, Staff Working Document, Report to the Council, the European Parliament and the Economic and Social Committee on the application of Directive 2001/29/EC on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society SEC(2007) 1556 Guibault, L., et. al., Study on the Implementation and Effect in Member States’ Laws of Directive 2001/29/EC on the Harmonisation of Certain Aspects of Copyright and Related Rights in the Information Society, IViR, 2007, Chapter 4 Helberger, N., Hugenholtz, P. B., No place like home for making a copy: private copying in european copyright law and consumer law (2007) 22(3) Berkeley Tech. L.J. 1062 Guibault, L., Accommodating the Needs of iConsumers: Making Sure They Get Their Money’s Worth of Digital Entertainment (2008) 31 J Consum Policy 409 Helberger, N., Digital Rights Management from a Consumer's Perspective [2005] 8 IRIS Plus

Avec l’avènement de l’ère numérique, les titulaires de droits d’auteur ont commencé à chercher des solutions non juridiques pour pallier aux défauts et à l’inefficacité des mesures de protection juridiques traditionnelles. C’est ainsi que les mesures techniques de protection sont nées. De natures et d’étendues diverses, ces mesures ont pour objet de protéger l’accès aux œuvres et de contrôler la vente, la distribution et la copie de celles-ci. Parmi les plus connues, l’on retrouve les DRMs (acronyme de Digital Rights Management). Le problème est que les DRMs présentent souvent un grand nombre de désavantages par rapport aux avantages qu’ils offrent, aussi bien pour les utilisateurs de produits protégés de la sorte que pour ceux qui offrent ces produits de facto. Notre postulat est donc que les DRMs sont contraires aux intérêts des utilisateurs/consommateurs et vont à l’encontre de leurs attentes. Cette contrariété par rapport à ce qu’ils recherchent a pour conséquence que les utilisateurs ne sont pas forcément enclins à acheter et à utiliser des produits contenant des DRMs. Les auteurs et distributeurs devraient, dès lors, prendre en considération les défauts présentés, encore à l’heure actuelle, par les mesures techniques de protection (et, plus précisément par les DRMs) afin de mieux coller aux attentes des utilisateurs/consommateurs. Ils devraient donc établir un modèle juridique, technique et économique bénéfique à l’ensemble de la société. Afin de confirmer ou d’infirmer notre postulat, nous nous pencherons sur différentes facettes de la problématique de l’utilisation de DRMs, celles-ci étant aussi bien juridiques que techniques et qu’économiques. Master [120] en droit, Université catholique de Louvain, 2017

Bu çalışmada, bilgisayar ve öğretim teknolojileri öğretmenliği bölümü öğrencilerinin dijital ürün tercihleri, dijital hakların yönetimi ya da dijital kısıtlamaların yönetilmesi olarak adlandırılan DRM teknolojilerine ilişkin bilgi ve farkındalık düzeyleri ve bu teknolojileri mahremiyetlerini ihlal eden bir teknoloji olarak görüp görmediklerinin belirlenmesi amaçlanmıştır. Tarama modelinin kullanıldığı çalışmada, veriler çevrimiçi anket aracılığı ile toplanmıştır. Araştırma sonuçlarına göre öğrencilerin kullanımında ve dağıtımında gelişmiş haklara sahip oldukları dijital ürünleri tercih ettikleri belirlenmiştir. Araştırmaya katılan öğrencilerin büyük çoğunluğu DRM teknolojilerini hiç duymadıklarını ifade etmişlerdir. Ayrıca DRM teknolojilerinin tam olarak ne olduğunu bildiğini ifade eden öğrencilerin büyük çoğunluğu, bu teknolojileri mahremiyetlerini ihlal eden bir teknoloji olarak görmedikleri belirlenmiştir.

With the digital revolution within video games, the need for Digital Rights Management (DRM) has increased significantly, alongside with the increasing problem of copyright pirates. To counter pirates, DRM was created to prevent illegal copying of software, this to ensure that the Distributors received an income for their work. DRM has, since the start of its use, been getting, a lot of bad criticism from the users of the software protected by DRM. The main function of this paper is to describe the creation and development of DRM by analysis of the vision of different groups on this phenomenon. The main questions are as follows, is it possible to define the very reason for why DRM was created and if so, can its development through time be defined too? What differences in opinions are there when it comes to DRM, counting the two major groups of creators, sellers, distributors (referred to as distributors) versus individual users (referred to as consumers)? In what way will the research results suggest that the future DRM will develop? The development has gone from solving puzzles in a handbook to start the game each time the user wants to play, to serial numbers that is needed during the installation of the game. Even more extreme measures has been taken, consisting of the installation of an external software to verify the license key and ensure that no illegal actions were taken. Distributors have shown through the years that the use of DRM is a must to protect their games from piracy. With the years that gone by, the DRM-system has developed into a more advanced software protection system and with this more problems have begun to emerge affecting the legal consumers, like errors preventing the users from playing the game. At the same time Distributors show little interest to remove or lower the usage of DRM. Users believe that the removal of DRM is the perfect solution, but discard the fact that a software without any kind of copy protection would risk not to generate any income at all for the developers. When we consider now and then, we can see distinct patterns of continuing development of DRM-methods that do not create the same amount of issues for the consumers. The problem however previously addressed by DRM to stop illegal copies has now shifted to whether the consumers have the right to modify or change their purchased games.

This article will examine the legality of the digital rights management (‘DRM’) measures used by the major e-book publishers and device manufacturers in the United States, European Union and Australia not only to enforce their intellectual property rights but also to create monopolistic content silos, restrict interoperability and affect the ability for users to use the content they have bought in the way they wish. The analysis will then proceed to the recent competition investigations in the US and EU over price-fixing in e-book markets, and the current litigation against Amazon in the US for an alleged abuse of its dominant position. A final point will be made on possible responses in Australia to these issues taking into account the jurisprudence on DRM in other scenarios.

This bachelor thesis deals with problems of e-book piracy. It describes e-book development and tries to answer the question why e-books began to be favourite item to pirate. Then it deals with laws, with which government tries to stop piracy and with action of copyright owners, with which they tries to prevent and stop piracy.

This chapter analyzes some of the most relevant ethical issues and social dilemmas in knowledge management and organizational innovation, by focusing on a paramount feature of digital technology, which is “copying.” The new ways in which information is produced, distributed, and shared in digital environments have in fact changed crucial aspects of human life. Whereas, most of the time, scholars consider such transformations in connection with the impact of digital copies on copyright law, the aim of the chapter is to widen this perspective by examining data protection as well as file sharing application systems. The new economical scenarios and business models proposed by this copy-based technology suggest new ways for balancing property rights and “the right to freely participate in the cultural life of the community.”

IT technologies and especially the progressive use of Internet have transformed the mechanism of knowledge transmission and its reproduction. We find, on the one hand, a model of knowledge circulation based on contract self-enforcement, through technological protection measures (TPMs). This kind of control is identified in Digital Rights Management (DRM), whose goal is to make the license terms for access and use of information recognizable by the software and equipment made for the use of information. Through DRM systems an automatic application (in personal computers, mobile phones, televisions, etc.) of contractual rules used for the distribution of digital contents is possible. On the other hand, stands the idea of Creative Commons Language which starts from the need to contrast the risk that a rigid and centralized control might colonize knowledge and above all to enhance the use of information technologies, Network, Web and new intermediaries (institutional archives, Internet search engines such as Google Books Search and Google Scholar, etc.). This latter aspect presents features of particular interest and is worthy of attention in this paper. The circulation of information on the Web becomes a key issue. Indeed, if the main purpose of Creative Commons is to ensure maximum diffusion and reuse of information and if the main space for the circulation of content is represented by the Web, the studies on cataloguing techniques, classification of information and the relevant rights in virtual spaces deserve special care. According to Creative Commons licenses (CCLs), the development and evaluation of knowledge are based on the collaboration of an open community of persons. The CC movement represents a landmark, not only from an ideological and contractual point of view, but also from a technological one: CC licenses, using some system technologies similar to those of DRM, appear to users in a readable form and also in a machine-readable form. The technologies which allow DRM systems to exercise strict control over information are developed by CC to facilitate the diffusion and the use of content, aiming at a flexible and decentralized control. The essay is intended to first provide a brief description of the IT technologies developed in DRM systems and by Creative Commons and then, for the translation of rules into IT code, to highlight the differences and, especially, the various achieved purposes. Lo sviluppo delle nuove tecnologie e l’utilizzo sempre più ampio del web hanno trasformato radicalmente la riproduzione e la diffusione dell’informazione. Il panorama vede contrapposto un approccio legato al rigido mantenimento dei diritti d'autore, attraverso l’utilizzo di Digital Rights Management (DRM), a nuove e più elastiche soluzioni, come quelle rappresentate dalle Creative Commons Licenses (CCLs). I DRM hanno lo scopo di rendere riconoscibili da software le restrizioni su utilizzo e circolazione dell'oggetto digitale, rendendolo immodificabile e ad accesso ristretto. Le licenze CC, invece, nascono dalla necessità di contrastare un rigido e centralizzato controllo della conoscenza, cercando di accrescere la collaborazione online. Le licenze CC danno all'utente libertà di accesso, di riproduzione e di distribuzione della risorsa e permettono all'autore di scegliere il livello di protezione dell'opera, consentendo o negando l'uso commerciale o la modifica di essa, o imponendo l'obbligo di mantenere lo stesso tipo di diritti sulle opere derivate. Il movimento alla base delle licenze Creative Commons rappresenta un punto di riferimento sia sotto l’aspetto ideologico che tecnologico; infatti, il procedimento con cui i DRM riescono ad essere efficaci nel controllo della diffusione dell’informazione viene impiegato nelle licenze CC per facilitare e incrementare la diffusione e l’utilizzo dei contenuti, con un controllo flessibile e decentralizzato. L’articolo si propone di descrivere i due modelli, evidenziandone le differenze e gli scopi.

This article, derived from a report on Intellectual Property Rights of the ATHENA-project, discusses some present topics in current copyright. In the first part of the article an overview of collective licensing models is presented in relation to the digitisation and disclosure of cultural heritage content. It should be noted that the general scope of copyright will not be discussed in this article since it already featured extensively in the ATHENA report Overview of IPR legislation in relation to the objectives of Europeana, available online. Current trends in unlocking cultural heritage content by making it digitally available on the Internet are illustrated next. We take a look at the current copyright discussions within the European policy field, followed by an overview of collective licensing mechanisms. Another main part of the article concerns Digital Rights Management systems and their implementation. A rather technical overview is given of existing DRM systems; a definition of what these systems are and certain technological aspects of them are presented. At the end we take a look at new and emerging licensing models. Open content licenses and Creative Commons licenses in particular are discussed. Their application in the field of cultural heritage, as well as some cases and best practices, illustrate the theory before a general conclusion.

In 2007, France created the Regulatory Authority for Technical Measures (l’Autorité de Régulation des Mesures Techniques or ARMT), an independent regulatory agency charged with promoting the interoperability of digital media distributed with embedded “technical protection measures” (TPM), also known as “digital rights management” technologies (DRM). ARMT was established in part to rectify what French lawmakers perceived as an imbalance in the rights of copyright owners and end users created when the European Copyright Directive (EUCD) was transposed into French law as the “Loi sur le Droit d’Auteur et les Droits Voisins dans la Société de l’Information” (DADVSI). ARMT is both a traditional independent regulatory agency and a novel attempt to develop a new governance structure at the national level to address global information economy challenges. The fear that other national governments might follow suit seems to have helped to cool enthusiasm for TPM among some businesses. This Article notes parallels between the limitations imposed on ARMT and those imposed on the first modern independ- ent regulatory agencies that emerged in the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Using history as a guide, it is not surprising that the ARMT’s exercise of authority has been limited during its early years; it remains possible that ARMT may become a model for legislation in other countries. It took decades before the first American independent regulatory agencies exercised real authority, and their legitimacy was not established beyond ques- tion until Roosevelt’s “New Deal.” Even though information society institutions may evolve quickly, national governments are sure to require more time to develop effective, legitimate ways to ensure that global information and communication technology (ICT) standards conform to their national social policies.

In this thesis I'm going to show the advantages of digitization of library collection. Afterwards I'll analyze legal situation of on-line lending of copyrighted materials by University of Economics library and I'll introduce methods of Digital Rights Management protections. I'll analyze available software based Digital Rights Management solutions and consider their implementation in University of Economics library.

This Report examines the legal framework within which research data is generated, managed, disseminated and used. It provides an overview of the operation of copyright law, contract and confidentiality laws, as well as a range of legislation - privacy, public records and freedom of information legislation – that is of relevance to research data. The Report considers how these legal rules apply to define rights in research data and regulate the generation, management and sharing of data. The Report also describes and explains current practices and attitudes towards data sharing. A wide array of databases is analysed to ascertain the arrangements currently in place to manage and provide access to research data. Finally, the Report encourages researchers and research organisations to adopt proper management and legal frameworks for research data outputs. It provides practical guidance on the development and implementation of legal frameworks for data management with the objective of ensuring that research data can be accessed and used by other researchers.

Open Content Licensing: Cultivating the Creative Commons brings together papers from some of the most prominent thinkers of our time on the internet, law and the importance of open content licensing in the digital age. Drawing on material presented at the Queensland University of Technology conference of the same name in January 2005, the text provides a snapshot of the thoughts of over 30 Australian and international experts – including Professor Lawrence Lessig, Futurist Richard Neville and the Hon Justice Ronald Sackville – on topics surrounding the international Creative Commons, from the landmark Eldred v Ashcroft copyright term decision to the legalities of digital sampling in a remix world. Edited book: Contributors include: Richard Neville, Professor Arun Sharma, Mark Fallu, Professor Barry Conyngham AM, Greg Lane, Professor Brian Fitzgerald, Nic Suzor, Professor Lawrence Lessig, Professor Richard Jones, Professor Greg Hearn, Professor John Quiggin, Dr David Rooney, Neeru Paharia, Michael Lavarch, Stuart Cunningha, Dr Terry Cutler, Damien O’Brien, Renato Ianella, Carol Fripp, Dennis MacNamara, Jean Burgess, The Hon Justice James Douglas, The Hon Justice Ronald Sackville, Linda Lavarch MP, Tom Cochrane, Ian Oi, Dr Anne Fitzgerald, Neale Hooper, Keith Done, Sal Humphreys, John Banks

Libraries are confronted with important problems of rights management, specially with their digital collections. To face these problems, they use rights metadata which can help them to collect and use legal information related to their resources. These data can then be interpreted by information processing systems and receive many practical applications. However, only a few systems are really adapted to their needs., Les bibliothèques sont confrontées à des problèmes de gestion des droits de plus en plus importants, notamment en ce qui concerne leurs collections numériques. Pour faire face à ces problèmes, elles utilisent des métadonnées juridiques qui peuvent les aider à collecter et utiliser les informations juridiques liées à leurs ressources. Ces données peuvent ensuite être interprétées par des systèmes informatiques et recevoir de nombreuses applications pratiques. Il existe cependant peu de systèmes réellement adaptés aux besoins des bibliothèques.

The dawning of the digital age has brought the Supreme Court’s Sony “staple article of commerce” doctrine to center stage in legal and policy discussions about the proper role and scope of copyright protection. To technology companies, it represents a vital safe harbor for product design; to the content industries, this doctrine remains an Achilles heel. The origins of this doctrine have always been somewhat obscure. With nary a peak at the text or the legislative history of the then-recently enacted overhaul of the copyright system, the Supreme Court adverted to patent law to determine the scope of indirect liability – a fundamental issue that would loom large in the shift from the analog to the digital distribution platform for content. A slim majority of the Supreme Court justified this interpretation of the Copyright Act of 1976 on the basis of a vague assertion of “historic kinship” between patent and copyright. This article scrutinizes this critical logical premise. Part I exhaustively reviews the litigation and correspondence of the justices to understand why the Court paid so little attention to the legislative materials and so much to the patent law. It finds that gaps in the information provided to the Court, in conjunction with the justices’ lack of familiarity with copyright law generally and the Copyright Act of 1976 in particular, led the Court astray. Part II tests the “historic kinship” premise, finding that it cannot withstand scrutiny. Had the Court traced the origins of copyright and patent back to their source, it would have seen that they both derive from a common wellspring: tort principles. Concerns about patent misuse and improper leveraging of monopoly power led the courts, and later Congress, to carve out an express safe harbor in patent law for those selling “staple articles of commerce” – products suitable for substantial non-infringing uses. Part III demonstrates that the 1976 Copyright Act envisioned that courts would continue to use the traditional tort wellspring, informed by the distinctive challenges of copyright enforcement. This would have brought the reasonable alternative design framework of products liability law into play. The article shows that this approach would almost certainly have resulted in the same outcome that the Sony Court reached, but of critical importance, it would have provided a more sound and dynamic jurisprudential framework for calibrating liability as new technologies develop. Part IV examines Sony’s legacy, showing that subsequent legislative activity, court decisions, and the marketplace reflect a practical reality that lies closer to the reasonable alternative design standard than a broad “staple article of commerce” safe harbor. In reality, Sony’s “staple article of commerce” doctrine has proven largely symbolic and unworkable, as Congress, the courts, and businesses in the marketplace have sought to promote product innovation without unduly jeopardizing copyright protection. The failure to recognize that reality, however, breeds doctrinal confusion, distorts case law evolution, and stultifies the larger policy debate over copyright protection in the digital age.

Deux hypothèses s'ouvrent pour gérer l'économie du document numérique, qui induisent des architectures informatiques différentes. Dans un cas, on va chercher à gérer l'aspect économique des droits d'auteurs au travers de systèmes intégrés aux documents eux-mêmes, qui agissent comme des verrous limitant et contrôlant les usages ; dans l'autre cas, on va accompagner la transformation de l'internet en média, avec un mode de financement globalisé et une répartition en fonction des usages. Cet article essaie de mesurer les conséquences de chaque choix d'architecture en regard des multiples fonctions des documents numériques, et en regard de l'extension de l'accès à la connaissance. La question de la mesure des usages est un point central dans l'organisation de ce débat, quand on veut maintenir une forme de financement de la création proportionnelle au succès et à la notoriété. A ce niveau des identifiants uniques et de leurs usages, on trouve là aussi diverses architectures informatiques qui vont avoir des conséquences économiques et géopolitiques : comment éviter une trop grande concentration du pouvoir dans les mains de celui qui pourrait gérer un tel système ?

Die Arbeit hat zum Ziel, ein grundlegendes ökonomisches Verständnis für die Struktur und Funktionsweise des Musikmarktes zu vermitteln, der sich aktuell in einer Umbruchphase befindet. Systematische industrieökonomische Analysen, die den Einfluss digitaler Technologien auf die Musikindustrie in seiner Ganzheit erfassen, liegen bislang nicht vor. Diese Lücke versucht die vorliegende Arbeit zu schließen. Die aufgezeigten Problembereiche und ihre Zusammenhänge werden anhand neu entwickelter Modelle eingehend analysiert und bewertet. Dabei spielt die Gestaltung des Produktwettbewerbs, die Entwicklung neuer Preisschemata, die Durchsetzung von Digital Rights Management (DRM) Systemen und die Etablierung (nicht)kommerzieller P2P-Kopiernetzwerke als zukünftiger wesentlicher Distributionskanal für digitale Musik eine zentrale Rolle. Nach einer kurzen Einleitung wird für ein besseres Verständnis der spezifischen Aspekte der Musikindustrie in Kapitel 2 die Geschichte speziell unter dem Aspekt technologischer und inhaltlicher Produktinnovationen und deren Auswirkungen auf die Marktstruktur und das Marktverhalten der Musikunternehmen dargestellt. In Kapitel 3 werden die wesentlichen Eigenschaften von Musiktiteln herausgearbeitet. Diese ergeben sich aus den besonderen Material-, Kosten- und Nachfrageeigenschaften. Zur Beantwortung der grundsätzlichen Frage der Marktfähigkeit digitaler Musik werden die Eigenschaften ausführlich analysiert. Im 4. Kapitel werden das Nachfrage- und Angebotsverhalten sowie die zentralen Wettbewerbsparameter der Musikindustrie umfassend untersucht, um den Einfluss der Digitalisierung abbilden zu können. Im Zentrum der Ausführungen steht das derzeitige Wettbewerbsverhalten der beteiligten Marktakteure hinsichtlich der traditionellen, der rein digitalen und der hybriden Verwertung von Musiktiteln. In Kapitel 5 wird untersucht, welche Anreize die Nutzer von P2P-Netzwerken haben, unautorisierte Kopien von Original-Musiktiteln bereitzustellen und zu beziehen. Für ein besseres Verständnis wird zunächst die volkswirtschaftliche Bedeutung und die Funktionsweise von P2P-Netzwerken dargestellt. Auch werden die ökonomischen Merkmale solcher Internetplattformen herausgearbeitet. Im Kern der Analyse steht dann das wider Erwarten kooperative Verhalten der Teilnehmer. Dazu wird ein neu entwickelter Ansatz zu Erklärung kooperativen Verhaltens und des damit verbundenen zeitstabilen Angebots nichtkommerzieller P2P-Kopiernetzwerke - unter Berücksichtigung strafrechtlicher Konsequenzen beim unautorisierten Umgang mit urheberrechtlich geschützten Musiktiteln - vorgestellt und diskutiert. Dies geschieht auf Basis der Charakteristika von P2P-Netzwerken und mit Hilfe des Instrumentariums der evolutionären Spieltheorie. Aufbauend auf den Ergebnissen zum Verhalten der Nutzer von P2P-Netzwerken wird in Kapitel 6 die kommerzielle Verwertung qualitativ unterschiedlicher Versionen eines Musiktitels betrachtet. Im Mittelpunkt der Untersuchung steht das Angebotsverhalten der Musikunternehmen unter Berücksichtigung der Existenz nichtkommerzieller P2P-Kopiernetzwerke. Wie muss also der Anbieter den Preis und die Qualität seines Originals wählen, um bei der Möglichkeit zur unautorisierten Kopie seinen Gewinn zu maximieren? Diskutiert werden zwei im Rahmen dieser Arbeit entwickelten Ansätze, die allgemein als eine reaktive und proaktive Handlungsalternative anzusehen sind. Die Arbeit schließt mit einer Zusammenfassung der wichtigsten Ergebnisse. This is a book about the competition in the (German) music industry. It examines the issues important to the future of the music business and especially the music industry. An in-depth study of the demand und supply side shows the current problems and issues for the record companies. First, the stability of cooperative behavior in file sharing networks. Second, the construction of optimal pricing schemes in conjunction with the optimal number of different versions of a music song in the presence of unauthorized file sharing. For the solution of these problems, the book contains two new (game) theoretic models. The models provide optimal behavior strategies for consumers and record companies as well. The results will be supported by empirical evidence. The organization of the book is as follows: Chapter 1: Introduction. Chapter 2: Product innovations and market structure in the history of the (global) music industry. Chapter 3: Characteristics and marketability of digital information goods. Chapter 4: Market analysis and competition behavior in the (German) music industry. Chapter 5: A simple game theoretic model of cooperation in peer-to-peer (p2p) file sharing networks. An evolutionary approach. Chapter 6: Pricing schemes, product quality and digital rights management in the presence of illegal copying. Chapter 7: Summary. Literature.

This paper examines certain social costs of deploying digital rights management or DRM systems to protect copyrighted content. The calculus of costs and benefits for such technical self-help is highly complex, and the prospect for successful self-help via such measures is uncertain due to the deterministic nature of the technical design. DRM systems essentially provide an automated alternative to legal protections such as copyright. But because it is impossible to program complex situational responses into DRM systems, DRM constitutes the equivalent of a legal rule, rather than a legal standard. Thus the literature on rules and standards is useful in evaluating the effects of DRM deployment. As this literature would predict, DRM shifts discretion away from the user, toward the producer, and DRM design therefore resembles legal rule making rather than legal standard setting. Previous analyses of rules and standards suggests that rules are preferable when the costs of ex ante decision-making will be lower than the costs of ex post discretion and adjudication. Ex ante DRM design decisions by content producers are also likely to be driven by the character of the technology. At the same time that DRM stands in for a legal rule, it also comprises a technical standard. For reasons of interoperability and trust management, DRM will tend to converge on a single standard. This means that DRM will tend toward a type of technological monoculture, presenting opportunities for the standards owner to engage in anti-competitive market distortions. This result will tend to be reinforced by legal anti-circumvention measures, a trend already apparent in the employment of the DMCA in some court decisions. However, more recent appellate decisions seem determined to resist this result, employing statutory re-interpretation and the threat of anti-competition sanctions to reverse the worst effects of DRM market distortion.

Japanese translation of article published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology

La gestion des DRM en perspective Le téléchargement des fichiers est communément accepté et utilisé parmi les internautes aujourd'hui. Cependant, ces médias numériques, s'ils sont légalement disponibles à la vente en magasin, ne le sont pas, tout spécialement et à preuve du contraire, sur les réseaux de P2P. En effet, le droit d'auteur doit s'appliquer et c'est bien dans cette optique que les artistes, les éditeurs et producteurs sont préoccupés par la protection de leurs ¦uvres. Aussi, progressivement, des dispositions ont été créées afin de protéger l'ensemble de ces contenus tant d'un point de vue technique que de la gestion des droits. Les DRM comprennent un ensemble de technologies permettant de protéger les droits d'auteurs en chiffrant les contenus et en n'autorisant qu'un accès limité et contrôlé en fonction des droits associés à ceux-ci. Traditionnellement, les systèmes de protection des droits d'auteurs qui prévalaient, reposaient sur un fragile équilibre entre la protection donnée à l'auteur de l'¦uvre et donc une reconnaissance de ces droits exclusifs sur celle-ci contrebalancée par une série d'exceptions pour des usages spécifiques. Cet équilibre a été rompu du fait de l'évolution des technologies numériques. En effet, si avant, la reproduction à l'identique n'était possible que de manière dégradée, le numérique permet désormais de faire des copies parfaitement conformes à l'original, sans perte de qualité et en un temps et pour un prix records. Ceci a également été renforcé par la mise à disposition pour les utilisateurs d'ordinateurs toujours plus performants, possédant une capacité de stockage exceptionnelle. De plus, corrélativement au développement de l'Internet, la migration vers le haut débit permet d'échanger, de télécharger et de diffuser en un temps record tout type de contenus notamment à travers la diffusion des logiciels P2P. Ainsi, contre la menace d'une perversion du système et pour le respect du droit d'auteur, les DRM ont été pensés comme une des alternatives possibles au respect des droits de chacun.