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The erosion of high-end fashion brands by fast-fashion copycats (e.g., Zara, H&M) has stirred controversies and unceasing legal attempts to copyright fashion designs. Despite the purported negative impact of copycats, the effect of fashion copycats on high-end brands remains empirically unclear. Research on this topic has been impeded by the absence of a modeling framework to quantify fashion and by the lack of consumer-level data on fashion choices. The authors collect data on the posting behaviors of consumers on a fashion-specific social media platform and develop a dynamic structural model with deep learning image analytics to characterize consumers' choices of brands and styles. Results suggest that fast-fashion copycats can both harm high-end brands (a cannibalization effect) and help them (a market expansion effect). The authors also identify both static and dynamic mechanisms that contribute to the market expansion effect: The affordability of mixing copycats with high-end brands boosts the number of high-end items featured in posts by financially constrained consumers (a static mechanism). In addition, good styles from copycats enable users to build their popularity on social media over time, which may increase the users' valuation of high-end brands and reduce the users' future costs via sponsorship opportunities (dynamic mechanisms). The results could inform policy makers about the potential consequences of prohibiting fashion copycats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Policy & Internet is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article explores the challenges related to copyright policies in the context of science and engineering open access (OA) journals based in Korea. The English-language science and engineering OA journals published independently by Korean academic societies typically exhibit three common characteristics regarding their copyright and licensing policies. First, authors are generally required to transfer their copyrights. Second, the Creative Commons (CC) license terms are predominantly BY-NC (Attribution-NonCommercial), without providing authors the option to select alternative licensing terms. Third, the journals do not sufficiently protect the rights of the authors. From the analyses presented herein, it is evident that the current copyright and licensing policies of Korea’s English-language science and engineering OA journals lack a robust structure. These policies need to be revised to allow authors to retain copyright and require them to consent for the CC license terms it adopts, in order to align with the common practice among OA journals. Furthermore, to better protect authors’ rights, it would be beneficial to permit authors to choose the specific terms of the CC license for their articles.

In 2019, the Authors Guild of the United States announced their intent to pursue federal legislation for public lending rights (PLR). PLR provide remuneration to authors, publishers, and/or illustrators for the circulation of their works in public, and sometimes school, libraries. A number of countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, instituted PLR in the 1970s and 1980s. This article aims to investigate how public libraries in those three nations responded to the movement for PLR and how the philosophical concerns they raised may inform librarians in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author reflects on the lessons he learned from his failed effort to share an electronic copy of his own book to other people. Topics discussed include his assumption that retaining copyright in his work covers the right to share his book to those in need, implication of the impossibility of transmitting books between libraries, and the importance of the systems of inter-relationship to scholarship and libraries.

Lockdowns almost everywhere in the world as a result of the pandemic have led to an unprecedented shift from physical to digital. In the culture sector, this shift has made a large pool of previously inaccessible content available mostly in the form of archival material from cultural events and performances. Although in the past digital did not automatically mean more inclusive, as restrictions to access of cultural content were posed by copyright legislation, institutional policies or the resistance to the digital turn, with this abundant and almost unlimited offer of online content suddenly the discussion of obstacles in access has come to a halt. Our contribution looks into these developments focusing on high-profile cultural (e.g. national theatres, opera houses and concert halls) and audio-visual (AV) institutions with a public interest (e.g. Public Service Broadcasters and AV archives) in the European Union area. We are looking into policy aspects from an institutional perspective and focus on developments particularly vis-à-vis AV media policy and copyright policy. We argue this momentum is a unique opportunity to remember and reconsider policy objectives for an open, democratic and European AV cultural content. We identify this new reality and the implications it brings forward for the existing policies as well as the challenges and opportunities it holds for the AV culture sector, and identify possible policy directions and measures. We urge for the interpretation of broad and flexible exceptions and limitations to copyright for online access to cultural content while transposing the DSM Directive into national laws, and for a focused and coordinated effort related to the regulation of large online video sharing platforms enabled by the new AVMSD, involving such platforms in the financing, distribution and visibility of European AV content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AI applications are manifold in the music industry, both as tools assisting composers in creating and as music generating machines. AI applications assisting composers are widely used, for example in providing drum sequences or mastering services. AI-generated music is mainly used as production music, for example in synchronizing YouTube videos. Copyright implications relate initially to the use of existing works to train the computer, and secondly to the copyright protection for AI-generated musical works or sound recordings. This article firstly looks at the copyright acts involved in the training process in the EU, UK and US as well as potentially applicable exceptions. Secondly, it addresses the copyright position of AI-generated music and in particular the legal requirement of human creativity as the basis of copyright protection for musical works. The situation for sound recordings might be different. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American copyright law has undergone an unappreciated conceptual transformation over the course of the last century. Originally conceived of as a form of private law--focusing on horizontal rights, privileges, and private liability--copyright law is today understood principally through its public-regarding goals and institutional apparatus, in effect as a form of public law. This transformation is the result of changes in the ideas of law and lawmaking that occurred in American legal thinking following World War II, manifested in the deeply influential philosophy of the Legal Process School of jurisprudence which shaped the modern American copyright landscape. In the Legal Process conception, determining the substantive content of the law is fundamentally a matter of identifying the institution with formal competence (and legitimacy) to decide the matter, and then deciphering its policies and directives for an area of law in a purposive manner. The heyday of the Legal Process School, the 1950s and 1960s, coincided with the period during which the current U.S. copyright regime was being constructed. Several of its core lessons find direct veneration therein, including: the centrality of legislation as the harbinger of copyright's policy and purposes; the primacy of collectivist copyright policy over individual copyright principles; a recognition of the limitations of courts and judge-made law; and the treatment of copyright as a specialized but autonomous body of law requiring expert administration. As this Article argues, the U.S. copyright regime is today better conceived of as a "legal process," wherein the law is dynamic, purposive, and multi-institutional in origin. Modern copyright thinking would do well to embrace this reality and develop mechanisms to deal with this fundamental--yet unacknowledged-- transformation, which explains a variety of perceived anomalies and puzzles within the working of the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explains the landscape of the copyrightability of sound recordings by discussing the history of and requirements for master sound recordings, termination rights, licensing master recordings in samples, remixes, and audiovisual works, and the processes of mastering and remastering in the U.S. It argues that courts should never hold digital remasters to be derivative works because remasters contain a trivial amount of originality.

This article examines steps taken at one academic library to address issues encountered when attempting to create a foundation of copyright knowledge to assist staff in reserves and interlibrary loan. It reviews the development of a copyright policy for the library that specifically addressed interlibrary loan and reserves activities. It also addresses how conducting staff instruction, developing process documentation, and having regular training meetings, enhanced each department's ability to incorporate the new policy into daily workflows. Finally, it points out new issues encountered when attempting to simplify how copyright and licensed materials are handled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract As rights holders, courts, and policy makers worldwide struggle with the question of copyright infringement and the potential liability of internet service providers (ISPs) worldwide, Russia developed – and subsequently abandoned – a proposal for the creation of a global license to be imposed on ISPs which would allow for rights holders to be compensated for copyright-infringing activities carried out through those ISPs. Russia is not the first jurisdiction to look at a global license as solution to the wide spread of copyright infringements online. By analysing the Russian proposal for a global license, this article addresses the sustainability of such a model on a wider scale by analysing the legal implications this may cause. In this context, this article will address the Russian proposal's legislative history before moving into a substantive discussion about the synergies between legal justifications and merits of a global license. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the decline of online piracy around the world. It gives an overview of the rules on liability for and enforcement of online copyright infringement in selected countries. The state of authorized and unauthorized acquisition and consumption of different types of online content is described, as well as the impact of online piracy on legal sales.

Regulatory arbitrage—defined as the manipulation of regulatory treatment for the purpose of reducing regulatory costs or increasing statutory earnings—is often seen in heavily regulated industries. An increase in the regulatory nature of copyright, coupled with rapid technological advances and evolving consumer preferences, have led to an unprecedented proliferation of regulatory arbitrage in the area of copyright law. This Article offers a new scholarly account of the phenomenon herein referred to as “copyright arbitrage.” In some cases, copyright arbitrage may work to expose and/or correct for an extant gap or inefficiency in the regulatory regime. In other cases, copyright arbitrage may contravene one or another of copyright’s foundational goals of incentivizing the creation of, and ensuring access to, copyrightable works. In either case, the existence of copyright arbitrage provides strong support for the classification (and clarification) of copyright as a complex regulatory regime in need of a strong regulatory apparatus. This Article discusses several options available for identifying and curbing problematic copyright arbitrage. First, courts can take a purposive, substantive approach to interpretations of the Copyright Act. Second, Congress can empower a regulatory agency with rulemaking and enforcement authority. Finally, antitrust law can help to curb the anticompetitive effects of copyright arbitrage resulting from legislative capture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the prevailing understanding of copyright law and the Copyright Act's existing statutory scheme that governs copyright protection for artistic and creative works. Topics discussed include rise of digital music streaming services and playlists; ways in which copyright law protect music streaming services; and application of federal copyright law to playlists.

The right to published editions was introduced in the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) in order to prevent the unfair copying of typographical layouts of published editions of books in the public domain. The initial rationale, its actual effectiveness, and its relevance today has attracted very little attention among commentators. Historical analysis shows that the right was introduced into Australian copyright law without much discussion or engagement. Even today it is difficult to find evidence that there was ever an actual need for a right of this nature in Australia, or that it has had any positive effects on the local publishing industry since. This article demonstrates that despite its original intention, some industries today have moved to exploit the right by reinterpreting it to protect their own financial interests. This article concludes with some lessons that could be learned from the history of published edition copyright in the context of current copyright policy discussions -- particularly in relation to the newly proposed rights for news publishers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with changes brought by the amendment of the Czech Copyright Act (Act No. 102/2017 Coll.)1 within the relation of the extended collective management to the memory and educational institutions. Especially will be focused on a preservation exception and an exception for teaching purposes. The paper presents the current legislation, compares it to the previous one, analyses it impacts and effects especially on the area of memory institutions and educational institutions. This paper was created within the project: Proměny institutu kolektivní správy ve světle směrnice č. 2014/26/EU [Transformation of the Institute of Collective Management in the light of Directive 2014/26/EU] (MUNI/A/1393/2016). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the implications for European music culture of the European Union’s (EU) Digital Single Market strategy. It focuses on the regulatory framework being created for the management of copyright policy, and in particular the role played by collective management organisations (CMOs or collecting societies). One of the many new opportunities created by digitalisation has been the music streaming services. These depend on consumers being able to access music wherever they are, but such a system runs counter to the management of rights on a national basis and through collecting organisations which act as monopolies within their own territories. The result has been ‘geo-blocking’. The EU has attempted to resolve this problem in a variety of ways, most recently in a Directive designed to reform the CMOs. In this paper, we document these various efforts, showing them to be motivated by a deep-seated and persisting belief in the capacity of ‘competition’ to resolve problems that, we argue, actually lie elsewhere - in copyright policy itself. The result is that the EU’s intervention fails to address its core concern and threatens the diversity of European music culture by rewarding those who are already commercially successful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on publication overlap which is presentation of ideas in several papers by similar authors that warrants discussion and mentions clear violation of journal copyright policies. Topics discussed include chances of authors to publish observational study to understand effect of nutrients on growth of plant, publishing in multiple languages reaching several audiences, and problems in meta-analyses due to publication overlap.

The requirement of improper appropriation as a precondition for copyright infringement, a bedrock principle of copyright, has been under attack in recent case law. One line of attack attempts to eliminate the requirement in a specific area. Another erodes the requirement by construing it as a de minimis exception to infringement across all copyrightable subject matter. Ironically, a recent decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that is commonly read as a staunch defense of the improper appropriation requirement represents the culmination of this second and far more dangerous line of attack. The decision insists that the improper appropriation requirement equally applies across the law of copyright, thereby creating a circuit split. It also construes, however, improper appropriation as a de minimis exception to copyright infringement and strictly limits it to cases where the original, as used in the user's work, would not be recognized at all. This approach adopts an extremely frail version of the improper appropriation requirement. In effect this rule says: "Get a license or never copy anything recognizable!" This Article describes the process through which courts came to conflate the improper appropriation requirement with a de minimis exception. It explores the function of the requirement by analyzing its origin and underlying policy. Improper appropriation based on the criterion of substantial similarity is one of copyright's most important doctrinal mechanisms for allowing breathing space for secondary creation and assuring that copyright does not become an impediment for the creativity it is supposed to promote. The doubly narrow reading of the doctrine as a de minimis exception based on unrecognizability is inadequate for carrying out this function. The de minimis version of improper appropriation is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of cultural creativity as a cumulative process and the role played by this doctrine with respect to it. This Article argues that to properly carry out its function of ensuring a lively, dynamic, and just cultural sphere, there is a need for a much more robust improper appropriation doctrine than the de minimis version. It also explains why neither the uncertainty of the improper appropriation standard nor the existence of the fair use doctrine supports trivializing the requirement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at colonial copyright, focusing on books and literature as material that collects meaning according to the transmission and classification of books at custom houses and political entries. Topics include the nomenclature of the nation-state and copyright, shaping of copyright in colonial southern Africa, and colonial port cities. The commercial and regulatory functions of customs is discussed.

The mismatch between the expanding administrative and regulatory obligations of the United States Copyright Office and its limited institutional expertise is an emerging problem for the copyright system. The Office's chief responsibility--registration and recordation of copyright claims--has taken a back seat in recent years to a more ambitious set of substantive rulemakings and policy recommendations. As the triennial rulemaking under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act highlights, the Office is frequently called upon to answer technological questions far beyond its plausible claims of subject matter expertise. This Article traces the Office's history, identifies its substantial but discrete areas of expertise, and reveals the ways in which the Office has overstepped any reasonable definition of its expert knowledge. This Article concludes with a set of recommendations to better align the Office's agenda with its expertise by, first, reducing the current regulatory burdens on the Office, and second, building greater technological and economic competence within the Office, better equipping it to address contemporary questions of copyright policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In deciding what rulemaking authority the Copyright Office should have, it may be helpful to take a close and careful look at how the Office has historically exercised its rulemaking powers. This article undertakes this task and makes a number of observations: (1) the Office's rulemaking activity increased dramatically after passage of the 1976 Act; (2) the rules issued fall into a number of identifiable categories; (3) by far the largest category consists of rules administering statutory licenses set forth in the Act; and (4) the smallest category consists of precisely the kinds of substantive rules that some commentators propose the Copyright Office issue in the future. While Congress may, of course, change the balance of copyright regulation in the future, this Article argues that any future delegations of substantive rulemaking authority must take into account the fact that the Office's regulatory efforts to date have largely involved a very particular and unique kind of rulemaking, one that focuses on administering legislative compromises between large industries rather than on furthering specific copyright policies. Care must be taken to ensure that this unusual regulatory perspective does not unduly influence or affect future substantive rulemaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Information Science & Technology Association/Joho no Kagaku to Gijutsu is the property of Information Science & Technology Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article analyses the politics of copyright and copying. Copyright is an increasingly important driver of the modern economy, but this does not exhaust its significance. It matters, we argue, not just for the distribution of rewards and resources in the creative industries, but as a site within which established political concerns - collective and individual interests and identities - are articulated and negotiated and within which notions of 'originality', 'creativity' and 'copying' are politically constituted. Set against the background of the increasing economic value attributed to the creative industries, the impact of digitalisation on them and the European Union's Digital Single Market strategy, the article reveals how copyright policy and the underlying assumptions about 'copying' and 'creativity' express (often unexamined) political values and ideologies. Drawing on a close reading of policy statements, official reports, court cases and interviews with stakeholders, we explore the multiple political aspects of copyright, showing how copyright policy operates to privilege particular interests and practices and to acknowledge only specific forms of creative endeavour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Objective – The purpose of this study is to understand the practices and approaches followed by Canadian universities in copyright education, permissions clearance, and policy development in light of major changes to Canadian copyright law that occurred in mid-2012. The study also seeks to identify aspects of copyright management perceived by the universities to be challenging. Methods – In 2015, an invitation to complete an online survey on institutional copyright practices was sent to the senior administrator at member libraries of Canada’s four regional academic library consortia. The invitation requested completion of the survey by the person best suited to respond on behalf of the institution. Study methods were largely adapted from those used in a 2008 survey conducted by another researcher who targeted members of same library consortia. Results – While the university library maintained its leadership role in copyright matters across the institution, the majority of responding institutions had delegated responsibility for copyright to a position or office explicitly labeled copyright. In contrast, respondents to the 2008 survey most often held the position of senior library administrator. Blanket licensing was an accepted approach to managing copyright across Canadian universities in 2008, but by 2015 it had become a live issue, with roughly half of the respondents indicating their institutions had terminated or were planning to terminate their blanket license. Conclusion – In just seven years we have witnessed a significant increase in specialized attention paid to copyright on Canadian university campuses and in the breadth of resources dedicated to helping the university community understand, comply with, and exercise various provisions under Canadian copyright law, which include rights for creators and users.

This paper presents the results of an online survey of Indian Library and Information Science professionals' knowledge and awareness of various topics related to copyright. Results of this study indicate the copyright literacy level of Indian LIS professionals. Only a small percent of respondents/professionals are familiar with copyright related issues. A major portion of the respondents depend on websites as a source for getting copyright related information followed by books and articles. After examining the overall findings it is concluded that the level of familiarity of Indian LIS professionals with issues concerning copyright is low as compared to the importance of the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how UK and EU copyright law and policy can satisfactorily address hyperlinking to copyright works available on the internet without the relevant right holder's authorisation. It suggests that a satisfactory> solution will adequately balance conflicting rights and objectives, conform with international legal instruments, and contour rights conferred by copyright with the precision that their proprietary character necessitates. It exhibits how the approach established in GS Media does not fulfil these criteria and suggests an alternative--reframing the infringement test for the making available right in a binary, objective fashion and harmonising Member States ' secondary liability regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The purpose of this study is to understand the practices and approaches followed by Canadian universities in copyright education, permissions clearance, and policy development in light of major changes to Canadian copyright law that occurred in mid-2012. The study also seeks to identify aspects of copyright management perceived by the universities to be challenging. Methods - In 2015, an invitation to complete an online survey on institutional copyright practices was sent to the senior administrator at member libraries of Canada's four regional academic library consortia. The invitation requested completion of the survey by the person best suited to respond on behalf of the institution. Study methods were largely adapted from those used in a 2008 survey conducted by another researcher who targeted members of same library consortia. Results - While the university library maintained its leadership role in copyright matters across the institution, the majority of responding institutions had delegated responsibility for copyright to a position or office explicitly labeled copyright. In contrast, respondents to the 2008 survey most often held the position of senior library administrator. Blanket licensing was an accepted approach to managing copyright across Canadian universities in 2008, but by 2015 it had become a live issue, with roughly half of the respondents indicating their institutions had terminated or were planning to terminate their blanket license. Conclusion - In just seven years we have witnessed a significant increase in specialized attention paid to copyright on Canadian university campuses and in the breadth of resources dedicated to helping the university community understand, comply with, and exercise various provisions under Canadian copyright law, which include rights for creators and users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the court case GS Media BV v. Sanoma Media Netherlands BV and Others and passed by the Judgment of the Court (Second Chamber) of 8 September 2016. The issues included GS Media and its implications for construction of right of communication to the public within EU copyright architecture.

Before imposing liability for copyright infringement, a court analyzes whether the defendant's allegedly infringing work is substantially similar to the copyright-holder plaintiff's allegedly infringed work. This substantial similarity analysis broadly contains two steps. First, facts and ideas do not receive copyright protection and are filtered out. Second, the two works are compared to see if there is material overlap between the two works' remaining creative expression--i.e., whether or not the two works are substantially similar. This two-step approach furthers the delicate dual goal of copyright law to keep ideas and facts freely available as raw material for creation while awarding an author copyright over particular creative expression. While this substantial similarity test is noncontroversial, drawing the elusive line between idea and expression has been challenging for the courts. This task is especially difficult in the context of pictorial, graphic, and sculptural (PGS) works. The substantial similarity test evolved largely in the context of literary works and is not perfectly transposable to PGS works. Courts have resorted to two pernicious tendencies in applying the substantial similarity test to PGS works. They have used either what this Note calls a "literal descriptive approach," comparing identifiable objects across visual works, or a "myopic visual approach," comparing abstract visual components such as colors and shapes across visual works. Both of these tendencies fail to approximate how human vision works. Instead of identifying objects first or seeing shapes and colors in isolation, visual experience is initially nonverbal and inherently contextual. A substantial similarity test divorced from visual perception may erroneously draw the line between copyright protection and no protection, deviating from the idea--expression divide. Drawing on the science of visual perception and the nature of artistic training, this Note proposes an alternate framework for substantial similarity analysis of PGS works. In this truly visual substantial similarity test, the first filtration step would sieve out what this Note calls "per facts" often reflected in artistic techniques. Visual works would then be compared in terms of how perceptual facts were combined to form an aesthetic, visual composition. This approach correctly conceptualizes the visual idea--expression divide and therefore allows meaningful protection for copyright holders without removing raw material for creativity from subsequent creators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Piracy is taking on an entirely new character in the age of media in the cloud. Global technology and business models are evolving rapidly, while regulators and lawmakers are catching up in attempts to work out a new set of rules of engagement. In this article, I explore the divergent developments between a retrograde global copyright governance regime and cloud-based media distribution that focuses on connectivity and access. I also examine attempts at business model innovation that seek to effectively embrace and control the continually evolving user–content–platform interaction in the cloud. This article will contribute to our understanding of this rapidly changing ecosystem and the dynamics between technology, law and market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collective management increasingly operates on the basis of the non-voluntary inclusion of right holders. After the first such licensing scheme has been questioned before the CJEU, the requirements of the operation of non-voluntary schemes are clearer. This article analyses the decision and discusses the possible effects on collective management in Member States, predicting a largely negative impact on national copyright policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dominant justification for copyright is based on the notion that authors respond rationally to economic incentives. Despite the dominance of this incentive model, many aspects of existing copyright law are best understood as motivated by paternalism. Termination rights permit authors to rescind their own earlier assignments of copyright. The elimination of formalities protects careless authors from forfeitures of copyright if they fail to register the copyright or place appropriate notice on their works. The law limits how copyrights can be transferred, when rights in emerging media can be assigned, and which works can be designated as "made for hire" by contract. Thus, while the basic model of copyright presumes that authors are rational actors, many of its actual provisions suppose that authors are not capable of understanding or protecting their own economic interests. This Article highlights and seeks to understand the tension between these two different conceptions of the author. Building on recent critiques of copyright's incentive model and on the insights of behavioral law and economics, this Article envisions what a more unabashedly paternalistic copyright regime might look like. Such a view accepts that authors are not rational actors; they are shortsighted, lack bargaining power, and respond weakly to distant and uncertain economic incentives. If we take this account seriously, copyright's existing paternalistic provisions are inadequate solutions to the behavioral failures that they purport to remedy. Instead, a truly paternalistic copyright regime would provide meaningful protections for authors against one-sided copyright transfers and would rely on more tailored and direct incentives for artistic creation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years demonstrate a growing use of algorithmic law enforcement by online intermediaries. Facilitating the distribution of online content, online intermediaries offer a natural point of control for monitoring access to illegitimate content, which makes them ideal partners for performing civil and criminal enforcement. Copyright law has been at the forefront of algorithmic law enforcement since the early 1990s when it conferred safe harbor protection to online intermediaries who remove allegedly infringing content upon notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Over the past two decades, the Notice and Takedown (N&TD) regime has become ubiquitous and embedded in the system design of all major intermediaries: major copyright owners increasingly exploit robots to send immense volumes of takedown requests and major online intermediaries, in response, use algorithms to filter, block, and disable access to allegedly infringing content automatically, with little or no human intervention. Algorithmic enforcement by online intermediaries reflects a fundamental shift in our traditional system of governance. It effectively converges law enforcement and adjudication powers in the hands of a small number of mega platforms, which are profitmaximizing, and possibly biased, private entities. Yet notwithstanding their critical role in shaping access to online content and facilitating public discourse, intermediaries are hardly held accountable for algorithmic enforcement. We simply do not know which allegedly infringing material triggers the algorithms, how decisions regarding content restrictions are made, who is making such decisions, and how target users might affect these decisions. Lessons drawn from algorithmic copyright enforcement by online intermediaries could offer a valuable case study for addressing these concerns. As we demonstrate, algorithmic copyright enforcement by online intermediaries lacks sufficient measures to assure accountability, namely, the extent to which decision makers are expected to justify their choices, are answerable for their actions, and are held responsible for their failures and wrongdoings. This Article proposes a novel framework for analyzing accountability in algorithmic enforcement that is based on three factors: transparency, due process and public oversight. It identifies the accountability deficiencies in algorithmic copyright enforcement and further maps the barriers for enhancing accountability, including technical barriers of non-transparency and machine learning, legal barriers that disrupt the development of algorithmic literacy, and practical barriers. Finally, the Article explores current and possible strategies for enhancing accountability by increasing public scrutiny and promoting transparency in algorithmic copyright enforcement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the copyright regime in Hong Kong, China, as of December 2016. Topics discussed include copyright protection in the digital environment; challenges caused by peer-to-peer file-sharing technology; proposal for a moratorium on lawsuits against individual Internet users based on noncommercial copyright infringement; and need of laws to protect interests of Internet users.