Search

For the past 70 years, researchers and experimental musicians have been working with computersynthesized music, forming a collaborative relationship with generative artificial intelligences known as human--AI co-creation. The last several years have shown that musical artists are quickly adopting AI tools to produce music for AI music competitions and for commercial production of songs and albums. The United States Copyright Office, in response to this trend, has released its latest policy revisions to clearly define what is eligible for copyright registration. Soon after, the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) also released new guidelines, providing recommendations for how library catalogers should address AI-generated materials. In both cases, they reject the notion of considering AI as a contributor. The language in each of these policies, however, is self-contradicting, showing that they are ill equipped to address generative AI. This study leverages critical textual analysis and qualitative content analysis and uses case examples to probe the manner in which these policies regard generative AI. Recommendations are made for addressing shortcomings in the PCC's policies, and moral philosophical frameworks such as virtue ethics and consequentialism support arguments for supplementing catalog item records with information from authoritative external sources, deviating from this policy for the sake of truth-seeking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regulators across the globe have imposed penalties on consumers for digital piracy consumption. Contrary to expectations, however, digital piracy consumption has continued to grow. The authors develop a simple model of competition between a copyright holder and a pirate firm to offer a plausible account for this observation as well as actionable guidelines for optimal regulation design. The core of this idea is to endogenize the pirate firm's strategic investment in antitracking technologies that help consumers evade a regulator's penalty. The authors find that as the penalty rises, piracy consumption can surprisingly increase after decreasing first; relatedly, the copyright holder and the society may suffer from tighter regulation. Depending on the cost of antitracking technologies of the pirate firm, the regulator optimally sets the penalty to operate in two different regimes. When the technology is available at a low cost, the regulator can achieve the goals of maximizing social welfare and minimizing piracy consumption simultaneously by setting a moderate penalty that maximizes consumers' expected penalty and tolerates some level of piracy consumption. In contrast, when the technology is costly, the regulator should set a relatively high penalty to completely impede piracy supply. Additionally, the authors show that supply-side regulation does not substitute away demand-side regulation, and educating consumers about copyright protection may unintentionally lead to an increase in piracy consumption. Last, the authors identify complex nonmonotonic long-run effects of piracy consumption regulation on the copyright holder's incentives for content creation and copyright protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

The question of authorship and legal ownership in AI-generated creative materials has become a contentious issue on an international level. This paper investigates the complexity of attribution of legal copyrights within the framework of the U.S. Copyright Law system and explores potential solutions to this evolving dilemma. The U.S. Copyright Law, rooted in the protection of inventors' exclusive rights, extends to both authors and owners, intending to safeguard intellectual property in the judicial field. AI-generated works, however, present a unique issue as they blur the lines of authorship in presented works. The U.S. Copyright Office, while expressing interest in addressing these issues, currently rejects applications attributing AI as the primary creator due to historical legal precedents, marking uncertainty with both creators and the general public about the future of commercialized AI-generated works. This paper highlights the intricate legal and philosophical questions surrounding AI and copyright law, emphasizing the need to carefully consider the roles and responsibilities of both AI and its users in the creative process. As AI technology continues to evolve, these debates will shape the future of copyright law's application to AI-generated works. The current application of AI in the creative process does fit within the U.S. Copyright Law, but with further evolution, the scope of human involvement could be reduced.

The article is devoted to the legal analysis of the features of copyright in the functioning of libraries and archives in Ukraine. It is noted that in the legal framework, the functioning of libraries and archives is closely related to copyright, in particular, in the context of using works stored in the collections of libraries and archives. It is established that the main mechanism required to maintain a balance between the needs of society and the interests of copyright holders is the application of restrictions and exceptions to copyright in the functioning of libraries and archives. The author analyzes the provisions of the Law of Ukraine «On Copyright and Related Rights» No. 2811-IX dated December 1, 2022, and concludes that this law introduces significant changes to the legal regulation of copyright in the functioning of libraries and archives. The author concludes that the Law of Ukraine «On Copyright and Related Rights» includes in the non-exhaustive list of works that may be reprographically reproduced. It is noted that the Law of Ukraine «On Copyright and Related Rights» has expanded the range of entities that can freely use works in their activities. These institutions include libraries, museums with open access to visitors, archives, and organizations for the storage of audio and video recordings. The author concludes that the Law of Ukraine «On Copyright and Related Rights» No. 2811-IX dated December 1, 2022, for the first time legislated the definition of an orphan work and established the basis for legal regulation of orphan works in Ukraine. The analysis of Ukrainian legislation and EU directives regulating copyright issues in the functioning of libraries and archives shows that that the provisions of the Law of Ukraine «On Copyright and Related Rights» are in line with the provisions of Directive (EU) 2019/790 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 April 2019 on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market and amending Directives 96/9/EC and 2001/29/EC and Directive 2012/28/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2012 on certain permitted uses of orphan works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The editorial "Crafting Excellence: Publication Tips from the Editors of Journal of Global Marketing" provides guidance for researchers aiming to publish in the esteemed journal. It emphasizes aligning submissions with the journal's aims, formulating clear research questions, employing rigorous methodologies, and making theoretical and managerial contributions. The editorial also highlights the importance of clear, concise language, proper formatting, seeking feedback, and responding to editorial and peer-review comments. Authors are encouraged to approach the publication process strategically and diligently to enhance their chances of success in this competitive journal. [Extracted from the article]

In this this article I evaluate how authorship of theatre occurred in the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. I explore whether individual playwrights such as William Shakespeare were viewed as authors, and thus owners, of plays at this time. I analyse the role of the Stationers' Company as print monopolists, and the role of Elizabethan theatre companies, who took ownership of scripts for performance purposes. I examine the impact of the publication of the First Folio. I note that the publishing syndicate behind the First Folio, led by Shakespeare's friends John Heminges and Henry Condell, had to obtain the print rights for several plays, not from Shakespeare's estate, but from the various Stationers who had acquired publishing rights while Shakespeare was alive. Therefore, the First Folio stands as an early example, even before statutory copyright existed, of a book created via what we now describe as the 'clearing' of copyright licences. A consequence of the First Folio was not just the emergence of Shakespeare as the English author-figure par excellence; the First Folio coincided with a rising legal expectation that authors should be owners of dramatic texts under copyright law. Throughout the seventeenth century and into the early eighteenth century I mark how tensions between the market power of the Stationers' Company and emerging recognition of the author's literary property led to the first British copyright statute: the Statute of Anne in 1710. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue brings together several essays that celebrate the quadricentennial anniversary of the publication of Shakespeare's First Folio in 1623. Following on from the 2023 Law and Humanities roundtable, the articles in this special issue adopt an interdisciplinary stance and lie at the crossroads of law, literature, history, and performative arts, with the First Folio acting as a crucial driver. Marking the quadricentenary of the First Folio allows the authors to discuss several issues related to its publication, such as questions of identity, authorship, and copyright. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright protection was very limited in the past. Both Shakespeare – and, later, Voltaire – suffered from piracy of their ideas. If their respective legal systems were insufficient to provide protection when they published their works, in the later historical development they both became very important in the legal field. Shakespeare became a model to be quoted in judgments for rhetorical reasons, whereas Voltaire was cited because of his strenuous battles to free courts from superstition and religion. The connection between these famous authors is also due to the sincere appreciation for Shakespeare expressed by Voltaire, who highlighted the revolutionary style of the English tragedy when compared with the classicist attitude still prevailing at the time on the European Continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Medical image copyright protection is becoming increasingly relevant as medical images are used more frequently in medical networks and institutions. The traditional embedded watermarking system is inappropriate for medical images since it degrades the original images' quality. Furthermore, medical-colored image watermarking options are constrained since most medical watermarking systems are built for gray-scale images. This paper proposes a zero-watermarking scheme for medical color image copyright protection based on a chaotic system and Resnet50, which is a convolutional neural network method. The network Resnet50 is used to extract features from the color medical image, and then a logistic Gaussian map is used to scramble these features and scramble the binary image. Finally, an exclusive OR operation is performed (scrambled binary image, scrambled features for the medical color image) to form a zero watermarking. The experimental result proves that our scheme is effective and robust to geometric and common image processing attacks. The BER values of the extracted watermarks are below 0.0039, and the NCC values are above 0.9942, while the average PSNR values of the attacked images are 29.0056 dB. Also, it is superior to other zero-watermark schemes for medical images in terms of robustness to conventional image processing and geometric attacks. Furthermore, the experimental results show that the Resnet50 model outperforms other models in terms of reducing the mean squared errors of the features between the attacked and original image. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2019 Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market represents an intriguing departure from the anticipated path of liberalisation in public policy. While it includes provisions seemingly aligned with the liberalisation of the Digital Single Market by relaxing digital copyright enforcement, it also introduces mechanisms that bolster digital copyright protection, signalling a shift towards market regulation. This paper explores why and how Jean-Claude Juncker's European Commission proposed a directive featuring robust regulatory elements despite initial promises of copyright deregulation within the Digital Single Market. Combining insights from political economy and political sociology, I examine the concept of 'political work' as the practice of promoting, defending, and implementing a choice of public action. Within this framework, I identify a managerial dimension of political work involving political practices that influence the institutional structure and management of public action. Utilising a qualitative methodology involving twelve in-depth interviews with Commission officials conducted between 2018 and 2021, alongside document analysis, I demonstrate how Jean-Claude Juncker and his cabinet's managerial political work, encompassing organisational reforms within the Commission, played a pivotal role in steering the proposed policy towards regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To prevent conflicting state-law interests and federal copyright interests in a single claim, Congress enacted Section 301 of the Copyright Act of 1976— providing a two-prong test to determine when a state-law claim is preempted by federal copyright law. Though Section 301 appears to be a clear and simple test, it has proven to be anything but. Between 1986 and 2023, six of the thirteen circuit courts decided whether state-law right of publicity claims are preempted by federal copyright law using the Section 301 two-prong test, but each court’s analysis was vastly different from the other. Specifically, the Second, Third, Fifth, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Circuits analyzed copyright preemption issues with right of publicity claims without a clear framework. Confusion plagues the courts in the following areas: (1) the subject matter and scope of the issues, (2) the equivalency of rights asserted by the plaintiff to copyright, and (3) the differing language within the relevant state right of publicity laws and its place within the preemption analysis. Further, each court has developed a different first step in analyzing preemption, which greatly affects the direction of the rest of the analysis. In some cases, courts consider both implied and express preemption. In others, courts only consider express preemption. Yet, none of the courts use a uniform framework. As the Ninth Circuit described, copyright preemption in relation to right of publicity claims has become quite the “murky body of law.” In the effort to clarify the murky waters of preemption, this Comment proposes a three-part framework for courts to uniformly apply in right of publicity litigations where copyright preemption is in question. The initial part of the framework provides a clear first step for courts to determine what is truly at the heart of the claim. The second and third steps preserve the Section 301 test but incorporate new considerations courts have historically encountered to clarify the confusion about subject matter, scope, and rights. This framework avoids the limitations of a bright-line rule by being broad enough to cover the many different fact-dependent and complex copyright issues found within right of publicity claims while still being clear enough to be helpful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of FinanzRundschau is the property of De Gruyter 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.)

The paper analyzes possible ways of protecting artificial intelligence systems and their elements with the help of intellectual property law from the perspective of European Union law. This paper deals with copyright law, patent law and sui generis database protection in relation to artificial intelligence systems. The paper begins with an analysis of whether and how an artificial intelligence can be protected by means of copyright. The author analyzes the European Union's copyright acquis and concludes that the elements of the Al system, as well as the entire artificial intelligence system, that are implemented in software, can be protected by copyright as a computer program if the originality requirements are met. However, the originality requirement is unlikely to be met in all cases in this context. The same issue with the originality requirement applies to potentially possible copyright protection of artificial intelligence systems as databases. Therefore, it is concluded that the fulfillment of copyright requirements for protection of an artificial intelligence system must be established in each particular case. The author also considers whether patent law is applicable to protect artificial intelligence systems. For this purpose, the provisions of the patent law of the European Union, in particular, of the European Patent Convention, are analyzed. The author concludes that the artificial intelligence system may be patentable as a "computer-implemented invention" in case all the requirements for patent protection are met. Sui generis database protection is also considered as an additional possibility for legal protection of artificial intelligence systems, taking into account that its applicability is limited to the European Union. Whether sui generis database protection is applicable to the artificial intelligence system should be decided on a case-by-case basis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, there is huge requirement of processed data that can be transmitted from one location to another. However data transmission over open channel faces various security related threats. So securing the data is first basic need for successful communication over unsecure channel. One of trusted method to secure the content is digital image watermarking. Digital watermarking secures the contents (audio, video and images) from unauthorized user by embedding secret information inside it. So, possible attacks can be detected by checking the degradation of embedded information. This work presents an optimized digital image watermarking solution using the Dragonfly optimization algorithm for an optimum scaling factor. It employs NSCT, RDWT, and MSVD transformations on the cover image, embedding watermarks in the appropriate band. Security is enhanced using the Henon Map encryption algorithm. Evaluation across diverse cover images demonstrates superior results in invisibility, security, robustness, and embedding capacity for copyright protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines §51 of the Swedish Copyright Act 1960, generally known as ‘the protection of classics’ in relation to international discourses on copyright in the mid-twentieth century. The provision in §51 protects works of cultural significance by deceased authors and artists against reproductions that are considered offensive, even if the works are in the public domain. This article analyses the arguments and motives that led Swedish legislators to draft §51 and contextualises them internationally. The origin of the protection of classics is rooted in the notion of a paying public domain, a provision which existed in various countries in the twentieth century that allowed the state to collect royalties for works in the public domain. In Swedish copyright law this economic right was reinterpreted as a moral right to protect classical works. Unlike conventional moral rights, this right aimed at protecting the interests of the public rather than the integrity of the author. The protection of classics, and to an extent the notion of a paying public domain, can be seen not so much as a regulation of intellectual property but more as a statement about cultural heritage. By showing how the protection of classics operated within the international discourse on copyright law of the twentieth century, this article explores the relation between moral rights, a paying public domain and cultural heritage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a direct result of advancements in digital technology and the Internet, the copyright protection and information integrity of multimedia that are being published across the Internet have emerged as a major and urgent issue that needs to be addressed. The technique of digital watermarking may be used to protect intellectual property. In terms of authentication, resilience, storage, and capacity of digital watermarking information, there is still room for development. Blockchain's potential in video copyright protection and management applications has motivated researchers. Copyright owners and consumers may now communicate directly via copyright protection apps built on the blockchain, eliminating the need for distributers and the associated fees. Nonetheless, the current blockchain–based video watermarking solutions require storing a significant number of coordinates depending on the watermark size and are susceptible to video frame attacks on the video frame texture region. This study proposes an enhanced video copyright management approach that incorporates digital watermarking, the blockchain, and a perceptual hash function. Watermark information is stored on a blockchain structure, which also acts as a timestamp for verification purposes. To verify watermark data without the source video, a perceptual hash function is employed to compute a hash value based on the structural information of video frames. The contribution is in learning how to extract a hash function from a small number of video frames that still adequately represent a large amount of video content while also reducing the number of unnecessary video frames and the amount of computation required to summarize and index that content in a blockchain. This expedites the dissemination of copyrighted works and increases their security and readability, hence facilitating their circulation on the Internet. Our experimental results demonstrate that this approach is memory efficient, as it only needs to store one key for each key frame, regardless of the size of the watermark. Additionally, the overall robustness is greatly improved by using the blockchain's random hash function. Therefore, new and important advancements in video watermarking have been realized because of this effort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, specialists and researchers are focusing their efforts on information security, while frequently exchanged data is increasingly vulnerable to cyberattacks and threats. They use cryptography and watermarking methods to ensure copyright ownership protection, authenticity and integrity by hiding secret data within encrypted images. Most existing watermarking schemes are unable to ensure a good balance between imperceptibility, robustness, time processing, blindness and security. To address these problems, we propose a novel blind watermarking scheme for color images based on chaotic sequence, A-start algorithm and DCT. First, we apply DCT transform on the host image to produce DCT weights. The image block sequences are then slightly updated and scrambled from the obtained DCT weights using A-start algorithm and Arnold chaotic map. Finally, the embedded bits are extracted using the same embedding steps. Optimized image block sequences result in imperceptible, secure and robust watermark bits while reducing processing time. Experimental results show that the proposed approach outperforms other similar works when it comes to imperceptibility exceeding 74 dB and execution time less than 1.5 s for both watermark embedding and extraction. It has exceptional robustness to filtering, rotation and JPEG compression attacks with normalized correlations exceeding 0.8. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Vietnam, ‘indie music’ is an internet-based phenomenon that began in late 2015, spearheaded by a generation of young GenZ artists on the music sharing platform SoundCloud. As a contribution to the current special issue, this article examines the relationship between Vietnamese indie music and streaming platforms. It shows how the genre was formed through the technological affordances of platforms such as SoundCloud and YouTube, and how it changed with the entry of Spotify. The findings show that Vietnamese indie music is co-produced on digital platforms through three means: users’ interaction, algorithmic recommendation system, and platform curation. These factors come together to deliver to listeners a sense of a new cultural formation that is different from how popular music has been traditionally produced and delivered in the past. When Spotify launched in the country in 2018, Vietnamese indie musicians saw it as a means to publish, to protect their copyrights, and to get publicity, something that domestic institutions or infrastructures did not provide. From this perspective Vietnamese indie music can be seen to represent the musicians’ entrepreneurial desires, rather than the oppositional politics that have historically been associated with indie music elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article critically evaluates the controversial technology i.e. geo-blocking, through two related prisms, digital copyright (in particular, audio-visual services) and, EU Competition Law. Two EU Regulations are key to this analysis: the Portability Regulation and the Geo-blocking Regulation. Compellingly, there are both contradictions and tensions between these two Regulations when it comes to copyright-protected services. The discordant legislative provisions are not the sole quandary; the General Court’s ruling in the Groupe Canal + case is generally anti-geoblocking in tone. By ruling against absolute territorial protection in the context of pay-TV licences, the General Court indirectly challenges the geo-blocking clauses in the aforementioned licences. While the CJEU annulled the General Court’s decision on grounds of proportionality, concerns relating to the fate of geo-blocking clauses in licensing agreements still prevail. An analysis of the two contradictory Regulations and the Groupe Canal + judgment suggests an apparent diminishing role for geo-blocking technology in the context of copyright-protected audio-visual services. However, vigorous lobbying efforts by the audio-visual sector introduce an element of uncertainty, meaning that the rescission of the copyright carve-out in the Geo-blocking Regulation is not a foregone conclusion by any means. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT As a fundamental component that supports business connectivity and enables intelligent decision‐making, vector spatial data encounter increasing copyright and security challenges throughout their lifecycle. There is an imminent need for a comprehensive lifecycle protection solution to ensure data security and adherence to copyright laws. This study introduces an integrated protection scheme designed to address copyright and security issues across the entire lifecycle of vector spatial data. First, DNA encryption is applied to the vector spatial data, with the key subsequently encrypted using the RSA public key. Concurrently, GD‐PBIBD fingerprint encoding is used to generate a fingerprint sequence. Thereafter, this sequence is scrambled using logistic mapping, and a quantization mechanism embeds the scrambled fingerprint sequence into the coordinates. Subsequently, the RSA private key is used to decrypt the key and extract the fingerprint information. Finally, logistic mapping is employed to restore the fingerprint sequence, and Hamming distance calculations are used to identify colluding users and trace potential data leaks. Experimental studies indicate that the proposed DNA encryption algorithm is effective for various types of vector spatial data, including point, polyline, and polygon data. It features a large key space and high key sensitivity. Furthermore, the GD‐PBIBD fingerprint encoding is simple to construct, offers excellent imperceptibility, and provides robust resistance to both single‐ and multi‐user attacks. This research addresses the gap in full lifecycle copyright and security protection for vector spatial data and offers a holistic solution for secure data circulation, thereby demonstrating significant practical value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increase in the number of communication networks and digital multimedia technologies, ensuring the confidentiality of information has become increasingly important. Digital watermarking and scrambling are two methods that can be used to provide security to digital data such as video and to limit the chances of piracy. By implementing these techniques, it becomes more difficult for unauthorized users to access or distribute the video content, thereby protecting the integrity of the video data. This paper presents a novel approach to video watermarking, where a watermark bit is inserted into the motion vectors obtained through motion estimation. This is done to ensure copyright protection for the video content. In the proposed architecture, the negative horizontal components of the motion vectors generated by the three step search (TSS) algorithm are used, followed by a perturbation of the motion vectors (MVs). The perturbation helps to increase the security of the watermark and prevent it from being easily detected or removed. The experimental results of the proposed architecture have shown that it uses few resources, thereby making it a practical and efficient solution for video watermarking. Overall, the proposed architecture provides a better quality watermarked image sequence, operating with low power consumption that does not exceed 1.39 W and a maximum frequency of approximately 75.7 MHz. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Greece & Rome" is a scholarly journal published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Classical Association. The journal covers a wide range of topics related to classical studies, including literature, history, art, and philosophy. The October 2024 issue features articles on subjects such as masculinity and violence in ancient texts, the Parthenon's significance in Kansas City, and the portrayal of Hercules in Roman art. The journal also includes reviews of Greek and Latin literature, history, and philosophy, as well as contributions from scholars around the world. [Extracted from the article]

Education is a prerequisite for the attainment of sustainable development, with multiplier effects on society. This study examines the possibility of achieving inclusive and equitable education under the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4, AU Agenda 2063 and ECOWAS Vision 2050. Copyright plays an essential role in either encouraging or barring access to educational materials, which are necessary for the attainment of SDG 4. Through a desk study using the laws and policies of English-speaking West African countries (Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone), the article examines the copyright laws of these jurisdictions in order to determine how they facilitate or stop access to knowledge. It finds that most of the jurisdictions (except Nigeria) have not maximized the flexibilities available for access to knowledge through copyright limitations and exceptions, thereby barring access to educational materials. It recommends a review of national copyright legislations in line with a developmental perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Combining the advantages of cryptography and digital watermarking, commutative encryption and watermarking (CEW) addresses the limitations of traditional information security technologies by simultaneously ensuring security and confirming copyright ownership. Existing CEW algorithms for vector geographic data cannot simultaneously meet the requirements of lossless and applicability to all types of vector geographic data. This investigation proposes a lossless CEW algorithm for all types vector geographic data. In the encryption scheme, all coordinate points are stored in a one-dimensional set for permutation encryption. This procedure is applicable to all types of vector geographic data. Then, the original coordinates are replaced with the encrypted coordinates according to the original spatial structure. Since encryption preserves the size of coordinate values, they can be gridded after normalization to ensure compatibility between encryption and watermarking. Subsequently, a characteristic matrix is generated by conducting singular value decomposition on the coordinate values within the grid. Finally, the XOR operation is executed between the encrypted watermark information and this matrix to complete the construction of the zero watermark. Experiments demonstrate that the encryption scheme can yield favorable encryption outcomes with just one scrambling, and the efficiency is greatly improved. The watermarking scheme is robust against most attacks on vector geographic data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A common perception is that a strong copyright regime protects cultural diversity and creativity; thus, it should be well developed, implemented, and respected. However, this belief may be different for certain industries or countries. In other words, strong copyright may not bring about a positive impact as expected whereas weak copyright can bring about positive impacts contrary to one's expectations, which is different from the conventional belief on copyright. This paper explores this issue with the Korea music industry. Although this industry has recently enjoyed global popularity with K-pop, it was lesser-developed as it endured many difficulties over several decades. By comparing and analyzing these two contrasting periods, the case of the Korean music industry demonstrates that both weak and strong copyright has helped with its development. This interesting case can provide meaningful implications regarding the practice and development of copyright and its impact on the growth of the music industry, particularly in the era of digitization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The final judgment in 2023 of the case There They Were once again triggers the legal community of China to reflect on the protection of literary roles and the boundary of fan literature creation. Fan literature can be divided into dependent and independent derivative fan literature. Judicial practices of China misunderstand the essence of fan writing, and confuse the protection of role-making with the protection of a role after it is appropriated. The difficulty of protecting literary roles is mainly the protection of role names, so the determination of role names is key to their protection. But the role name itself neither meets the criterion of a work protected by copyright law nor belongs to the name or designation in civil law's personality rights, nor does it naturally have the purpose or function of a trademark. So the best way to protect the literary role name is to establish a merchandising right, and the limitation of such a right must be set up simultaneously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Video game players do not just engage in ready-made gameplay but also actively take part in the construction of these experiences: they bring their desires, anticipations and previous experiences with them, and interpret and reflect their experience of gameplay in that light. Video games pose two challenges for a copyright assessment. First, should a game be assessed as an entity or broken down into its composite elements? Second, should copyright be granted to the gameplay which guides players' behaviours and shapes their ludic experience of a game? It is these questions which are addressed in this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

U.S. copyright law does not account for Indigenous knowledge. These items, such as stories, dances, songs, and oral teachings are data and works authored by a sovereign community, not just individuals. Indigenous data sovereignty provides that data and cultural knowledge are subject to Tribal protections. Tribes have the right as a sovereign nation to govern the collection, ownership, and application of its own data and cultural knowledge. Assimilating Indigenous knowledge into non-Indigenous works is a copyright issue from an Indigenous perspective. Librarians can identify these Indigenous copyright issues to support local Indigenous Peoples and promote efforts toward achieving Indigenous data sovereignty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Computer und Recht is the property of De Gruyter 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.)

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted Japan to review Art. 31 of the Copyright Act in 2021, which pertains to limitations on copyright for library usage. As a result, access to library materials via the internet became legally permissible within certain limits. Specifically, the amendment allows (1) the National Diet Library to transmit rare or out-of-print materials to individuals on the internet; and (2) libraries and similar facilities to provide users with public transmission services (transmitting portions of copyrighted works to users for research or study purposes). This article introduces the revisions made to Art. 31 in the 2021 amendment, explains the current situation regarding internet transmission of library materials in Japan, and explores future issues. Transmission via the internet is not subject to physical or locational constraints. The provision of library materials via the internet will thus involve considering how to position and organize the relationship between the individual transmission service for rare or out-of-print library materials by the National Diet Library and public transmission services by individual libraries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For effective copyright protection of digital images, this paper proposes a zero-watermarking algorithm based on local image feature information. The feature matrix of the algorithm is derived from the keypoint set determined by the Speeded-Up Robust Features (SURF) algorithm, and it calculates both the gradient feature descriptors and the vortex-like texture feature (VTF) descriptors of the keypoint set. Unlike traditional texture feature descriptors, the vortex-like texture feature descriptors proposed in this paper contain richer information and exhibit better stability. The advantage of this algorithm lies in its ability to calculate the keypoints of the digital image and provide a stable vector description of the local features of these keypoints, thereby reducing the amount of erroneous information introduced during attacks. Analysis of experimental data shows that the algorithm has good effectiveness, distinguishability, security, and robustness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the digital information age, distributed file storage technologies like the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) have gained considerable traction as a means of storing and disseminating media content. Despite the advantages of decentralized storage, the proliferation of decentralized technologies has highlighted the need to address the issue of file ownership. The aim of this paper is to address the critical issues of source verification and digital copyright protection for IPFS image files. To this end, an innovative approach is proposed that integrates blockchain, digital signature, and blind watermarking. Blockchain technology functions as a decentralized and tamper-resistant ledger, recording and verifying the source information of files, thereby establishing credible evidence of file origin. A digital signature serves to authenticate the identity and integrity of the individual responsible for uploading the file, ensuring data security. Furthermore, blind watermarking is employed to embed invisible information within images, thereby safeguarding digital copyrights and enabling file traceability. To further optimize the efficiency of file retrieval within IPFS, a dual-layer Distributed Hash Table (DHT) indexing structure is proposed. This structure divides file index information into a global index layer and a local index layer, significantly reducing retrieval time and network overhead. The feasibility of the proposed approach is demonstrated through practical examples, providing an effective solution to the copyright protection issues associated with IPFS image files. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep learning has become a promising model in the industry due to its superior learning accuracy and efficiency. In addition to conventional applications, such as fraud detection, natural language processing, image classification and reconstruction, object detection and segmentation this model can be widely used for data hiding, that is, watermarking. Existing transformed‐domain‐based watermarking provided better robustness toward attacks. In this article, an interesting autoencoder convolutional neural network (CNN)‐based watermarking technique, AutoCRW, is proposed, which can prevent intellectual property theft of digital images. First, the autoencoder functionality of CNN generates two versions of the same image, namely positive and negative version of the images, which decompose by a transformed domain scheme. Then, watermark information is embedded into the output images, which can be extracted to realize copyright protection and ownership verification. Finally, a denoising convolutional neural network (DnCNN) is employed over the extracted mark to ensure the robustness of the watermarking system. Extensive experiments demonstrate that the proposed algorithm has high invisibility and good robustness against several attacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The House of Birkenstock, established in Germany in 1774, has become a fashion icon, not least thanks to support from ageless influencers such as Kate Moss and Gwyneth Paltrow. On its way to fame, Birkenstock has sought to enforce a variety of different intellectual property rights in court, but with only average, if not little, success. Claims under German copyright law, however, turned out to be quite promising—until January 2024 when the Cologne Appeal Court intervened. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to make the image copyright protection system can resist network attacks, and to solve the problems of unknown copyright owner, difficulty in data integrity verification and unauthorized redistribution, a digital image copyright protection method based on blockchain and zero trust mechanism was proposed. Firstly, after the copyright owner signs with the elliptic curve digital signature algorithm (ECDSA), the signature and copyright information are encrypted with the elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) algorithm, and the ciphertext and the generated image hashing are uploaded to the blockchain; Then, the smart contract is called to authenticate the copyright owner, the similarity of the hash value is used to detect the infringement of the verified image, the MD5 key generated by the image hashing value is used to encrypt the detected image, the ciphertext and encrypted image are uploaded to the interplanetary file system (IPFS), and the corresponding storage address is returned to the blockchain. Consumers can download ciphertext and encrypted images in IPFS as needed after completing asset evaluation and paying when calling the dual-smart contract to initiate copyright transaction. Experimental results show that the proposed method can not only authenticate the identity, but also realize double encryption of the image and copyright information. It can prevent the unauthorized use and redistribution of digital content, and improve the overall security of the image copyright protection system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]