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The passing of the 'Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021' rekindles the age-old question about the scope of intermediary liability in India. The 2021 Code is not the first one to have raised this question. There is a long history of what the law in India wants the intermediaries to do in terms of managing the online space they own. At times, the legal structure has not made the expectations certain and definitive. The article reflects on the scope of intermediary liability in India and the extent of uncertainty that intermediaries face within the existing framework. It makes certain recommendations about bringing certainty for intermediaries. In the process, this article consults Legislation and Guidelines linked with intermediary liability. There is a critical assessment of various judgements delivered on the issue of intermediary liability in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the negotiations surrounding the treatment of journalistic content in relation to content regulation in the context of the European Union's Digital Services Act. News media organisations lobbied for a privileged treatment of editorial content from platforms' content moderation systems during the Digital Services Act's negotiations in the European Parliament, which came to be known as 'non-interference principle'. Although the principle did not make it to the final version of the Digital Services Act, a provision related to the respect of media pluralism and media freedom by platforms was added. This article draws data from in-depth interviews with stakeholders, as well as from an analysis of legal and communication documents. It aspires to shed light on the political-economic tensions that shaped the final version of Digital Services Act and how the European Union attempted to integrate the asymmetric relationship between news media and platforms in its regulatory agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article outlines key regulatory and governing issues and actions in China's internet and digital media in the first decade under the leadership of Xi Jinping. It argues that both the domestic and global dimensions are equally crucial to understanding China's internet regulation and governance in the Xi era. It further argues that the two interrelated dimensions that emphasise the state's centrality and supremacy in internet-related regulatory issues and frameworks help strengthen China's existing political structure at home and promote China's digital power globally in the digital age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The modern day use of emojis and emoticons has become so prevalent that it is now a new language and form of communication which must be legally acknowledged and integrated into our legal system. Our failure to anticipate and incorporate new modes and methods of communication will ultimately make our legal system less responsive to our society's needs and further the divide between our society and legal norms. The question we must be able to answer is: 'How about Dinner?' Answer: ' '. Is there a consensus on what we just agreed to? If we are to acknowledge this new language, how are we to deal with the fact that the meanings of emojis and emoticons can differ between individual, context and country? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fake news crisis has raised questions about the role of state regulation in curbing misinformation, as well as the responsibilities tech companies should shoulder. In engaging with debates on digital governance, this article has two key focuses: first, what are the problems associated with the lack of state regulations in the digital sphere – where technology companies have unprecedented control over online public discourses? Next, how can states ensure that online regulations are measured, and continue to respect important liberties? This essay argues that the lack of regulation over tech firms has led to arbitrary censorship, conflict of interest issues and a legitimacy gap, with adverse societal consequences. Next, through a case study of contemporary fake news responses advanced by the Thai government, it empirically examines concerns associated with state-led initiatives to regulate misinformation on social media. Overall, while advocating for increased regulation over the online sphere, this article argues that regulations which equate the concept of fake news to illegality are not optimal as they are likely to undercut societal liberties. Implementing robust transparency mechanisms over tech companies represents a valuable first step that should be undertaken before further attempts to advance coercive legislation establishing the state as the sole arbiter of truth are made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the evolution of media policy in Morocco, focusing on discourse surrounding 2016 revisions to Morocco’s press code. As part of a larger conservative turn in digital media policy post–Arab Spring, Moroccan authorities framed press code revisions as fulfilling commitments to the international community, adopting a more conciliatory approach than other oft-cited authoritarian states. This disparity makes it worth considering why Morocco’s new press code became the site of contentious and protracted struggle and what the policy-making process reveals about the intersection of neoliberal globalization, digital culture, and authoritarian politics. Policy analysis based on comparative reading of legal texts and discourse analysis demonstrates how the policy- making process works as a mechanism for authoritarian legitimacy on the world stage. I argue that revisions to Morocco’s press code demonstrate a reassertion of sovereign power alongside increased mechanisms for the legal and discursive distribution of responsibility to diverse stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes a bill drafted by the German Bundesministerium der Justiz und für Verbraucherschutz (BMJV) on the implement of the European Union (EU) directive on contracts related to the delivery of digital content and services (DID-RL) on November 3, 2020. Topics include the BMJV's stand against a typological classification of contracts for digital products; and implementation of guidelines in the general part of the law of obligations.

In the face of a pandemic, copyright law may seem a frivolous concern; but its importance lies in the everexpanding role that it plays in either enabling or constraining the kinds of communicative activities that are critical to a flourishing life. In this article, we reflect on how the cultural and educative practices that have burgeoned under quarantine conditions shed new light on a longstanding problem: The need to recalibrate the copyright system to better serve its purposes in the face of changing social and technological circumstances. We begin by discussing how copyright restrictions have manifested in a variety of contexts driven by the coronavirus lockdown, focusing first on creative engagement and then on learning, foregrounding the damage done by encoding a permission-first approach into governance structures and digital platforms. These stories unsettle the common copyright narrative--the one that tells us that copyright encourages learning and the creation and dissemination of works--laying bare its disconnect from the current realities of our digital dependency. Turning to consider the justifications for copyright control, we underscore the critical role of user rights and substantive technological neutrality in crafting a flexible and fair copyright system for the future. The article concludes with some lessons that might be drawn from these tales of copyright in the time of COVID19 to inform the development of new digital copyright norms for whatever "new normal" emerges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research critically examines how regulatory bodies in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States are responding to native advertising and influencer marketing, two practices that blur the line between digital media content and advertising. Through an examination of regulatory guidelines, documents, and cases from 2010 to 2020, we demonstrate how regulators adhere to a "narrow" regulatory paradigm that the advertising industry itself helped to establish in the early 1900s. Under this paradigm, the only potential problem caused by advertising is an individual consumer misled into purchasing something they would not otherwise. As such, for native advertising and influencer marketing, regulators recommend clear disclosure as the solution. Our synthesis of critical academic literature, however, reveals the wider social and cultural consequences of native advertising and influencer marketing, including the reputation of journalism and further erosion of the public sphere by commercialism, among other issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this Note, the author discusses the true potential that digital media and technology hold for class actions beyond effectuating notice to members of a class. Ironically, just as challenges have mounted against the use of the class action device, digital technology has continued to advance in the background to a point where it may be used to break down barriers to class certification now facing would-be class plaintiffs. However, much of the current discussion across law reviews and blogs as it relates to digital media and class actions pertains to the effect of digital media on notice. Not only are some proposed methods of digital notice flawed, the focus on notice overlooks the numerous other ways digital media and technology can support class actions. The author proposes that advances in digital media and technology may be used to solve recently erected barriers to class actions. Specifically, mobile location and purchase data-as well as new digital media formats enabling immediate feedback from class members-may be used to supply the additional evidentiary proof now required of would-be class plaintiffs who must establish elements under Rule 23(a) and (b) beyond a mere pleading standard and before plaintiffs have had the benefit of full merits discovery. The potential cost savings from new methods of digital payment for claims administration will also be of particular relevance to small claims plaintiffs who must argue that the class device is superior despite resistance from defendants who may suggest that the cost to administer claims alone renders a class action inefficient, and thus, an inferior method of adjudicating claims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accompanying the explosive growth of the Internet, one lamentable trend is the rise of online public shaming. While online public shaming may positively incentivize individuals to modify their behavior in accordance with socially acceptable norms, there has also been the emergence of an online "pitchfork mob" that can have a real impact on individuals' livelihoods and overall wellbeing. Due to the lack of legal remedies available to victims of certain types of online shaming, this Note suggests that web hosts are empowered by the expansive protections of the Communications Decency Act to develop and implement policies to curb the prevalence of online public shaming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examines China’s laws and regulations on digital media content, which have developed and transformed along with the market-oriented media reform and Internet growth. It argues that there has been a continuous effort to articulate legal criteria of content regulation since the early 1980s. The body of laws regulating digital content today does not show across-the-board vagueness, but an ‘unbalanced’ development with elaborated rules in some legal areas, yet ambiguous stipulations in some others. The ‘vagueness’ of the law is part of the political and ideological ambiguity of China’s reform and development and will not be resolved independently of larger and more profound transformations of the Chinese state and society. The development of digital content laws in China can only make sense in specific historical contexts rather than by comparing against an idealized Western legal order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the copyright implications, the U.S. Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) and the cloud computing. Topics discussed include criminal and civil applications of CFAA, reshaping of media towards cloud computing with the contours of copyright and concept of unauthorized accessing of a computer under the provisions of the CFAA. It also mentions the implications and evolution of digital media.

Online harassment targeted at women is often sexual and violent. Social media organizations have recently responded to doxxing, harassment and revenge porn on their sites by enhancing their rules of participation. This paper argues that this is a form of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) response. CSR actions involve voluntary codes of conduct with lax implementation systems and are known to be self-serving and nonbinding. A different form of CSR that is enhanced by law and government regulation may be necessary to curb the fear and threat faced by all, and women in particular, on social media platforms. Using a reexamination of the concept of CSR both historically and contemporaneously, the study advocates a regulatory-based form of CSR by tweaking Sec. 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) as a possible solution to the virulent forms of threats and violence that women encounter on social media platforms. These legal/regulatory-based forms of CSR have been advocated, and used, in other contexts to enhance the provisions of self-regulating CSR policies to encourage compliance. This is a response that seems specially suited for social media platforms because of the interactions of speech protection and the need for openness and participation on social media platforms. This paper is premised on the fact that threats, harassment, and revenge porn are not constitutionally protected forms of expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing together work from global media studies, studies of digital media regulation and governance, and cultural theory, this article analyzes the DVD region code system. It details how the technology came about through a process of global governance that set the terms for home video’s global distribution to the general advantage of Hollywood’s film industries. Rather than presenting a picture of purely top-down technological control, however, it argues that the emergence of region codes represented an international process of technical development and standardization by private media industries that reflected and generated understandings of media regions as both differentiated economic markets and spaces of cultural organization and coherence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the intellectual property (IP) law and ICT law and IP rights in the digital media world. It gives various examples of court cases for IP rights, balancing act between IP rights and fundamental freedoms and legislative amendments to the IP regime in South Africa. It also discusses the social awareness for traditional IP rights in the digital environment, public policy to limits the copyright, and court's decision to maintain public and private interest by the Copyright Act.

European Economic Area (EEA) Data Protection Authorities (DPAs) must confront the strong tension between the EU Data Protection (DP) Directive and the public freedom of expression daily. This article is grounded on a comprehensive and original survey of EEA DPAs based on hypothetical "new media " internet scenarios and demonstrates that these important regulators generally adopt an expansive interpretation of DPs role here. Only in the case of the online media archive did a majority see the special purposes shield for journalism, literature and art (art. 9) engaged. Default DP norms were generally held fully applicable as regards the social networking site, search engine indexer and street mapping service, while vis-à-vis the blogger, social networker and rating website many more DPAs acknowledged that such norms required interpretation with regard for freedom of expression. There was significant diversity in response which was not directly related to divergent national transpositions of the Directive but was associated with differences in both the scope and depth of the special purposes derogation in national law. This article proposes reforms aiming to ensure a more harmonised, legally certain and balanced reconciliation of rights online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sports literature has shown that sport can be used as an instrument for reuniting ethnically and religiously divided societies. The Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot communities in the island of Cyprus have been brutishly separated as a result of Turkey’s invasion in 1974 and a subsequent proclamation of the occupied land as an independent state. Because of the latter, the Turkish-Cypriots have been facing political exclusion, such as being denied participation in international football matches. Their ‘independence’ has detached them from the Cyprus Football Association, which remains the sole representative of Cypriot football in international governing bodies. The two sides have attempted unsuccessfully to resolve the problem, which has political extensions, and the question remains whether football can indeed loosen that ‘Gordian Knot’. Placing the problem within an international relations framework and based on digital media reports and secondary analyses, this paper includes elements of three levels of analysis and argues that for the time being there are very dim hopes that football can act as a re-unifying agent in the divided society of Cyprus. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article reviews the history of the Communication and Information Technologies section of the American Sociological Association (CITASA), and discusses its current research emphases and future trajectory. Critically, the article argues that CITASA has become the preeminent point of reconnection between sociology and communication, allowing cross-pollination of ideas in the study of digital media, and increasingly in the study of media more broadly. The article also discusses contemporary research emphases involving computational and programming-intensive research, research on the use and effects of digital tools, and research on communication and media broadly understood. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This column provides a country by country analysis of the latest legal developments, cases and issues relevant to the IT, media and telecommunications' industries in key jurisdictions across the Asia Pacific region. The articles appearing in this column are intended to serve as 'alerts' and are not submitted as detailed analyses of cases or legal developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first website on the Internet was posted in 1991. While there is not much factual content on the earliest websites, it did not take long for factual assertions--easily retrievable today--to flood the Internet. Now, over one hundred billion emails are sent, and ten million static web pages are added to the Internet every day. In 2006 alone, the world produced electronic information that was equal to three million times the amount of information stored in every book ever written. The earliest innovations in electronic communication are now over twenty years old--meaning that the factual assertions made by way of these electronic media are potentially admissible for their truth at a trial if (and simply because) they were made more than twenty years ago. This is due to Federal Rule of Evidence 803(16), the so-called "ancient documents" exception to the hearsay rule. Under the ancient documents exception, documents that would normally be excluded as hearsay are admissible if the document is at least twenty years old, and if the party offering the document can show that the document is "genuine," or authentic. As electronic communications continue to age, all of the factual assertions in terabytes of easily retrievable data will be potentially admissible for their truth simply because they are old. This Article argues that the ancient document exception needs to be changed because its rationale, while never very convincing in the first place, is simply invalid when applied to prevalent and retrievable electronically stored information (ESI). Part I of the Article discusses the rationales for the ancient documents rule and that exception's relationship with the rules of authenticity on which it is based. Part II addresses whether the rationales for the ancient document exception, such as they are, can be sensibly applied to ESI. Part III raises and answers some arguments against abrogating or restricting the ancient documents exception as applied to ESI or even more broadly. Part IV considers drafting alternatives for changing the ancient documents exception in light of its pending risk of use as a loophole for admitting unreliable ESI as evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the contrast between United States and European Union laws concerning social media users' right to remove their online presence permanently. Currently, the United States and European Union represent two distinct approaches to the right of individuals to permanently remove personal content from social media. U.S. law favors social media companies keeping profile content within the digital sphere even when that person no longer wants it there. The European Union's approach social media privacy gives users more rights to remove themselves entirely from social media permanently (General Data Protection Regulation, Article 17, 2012). Using Myres McDougal's (1959) legal theory of international laws' effect on national policy, this legal study examines the social media privacy laws of the United States and European Union concerning user control of personal content. From this analysis, future implications of this international conflict, specifically the legal delineation of public and private spheres in the 21st Century, are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Looking beyond celebrants and sceptics of social media, Kevin Healey taps the potential that exists to develop social media platforms, ethical codes and regulatory policies that support democratic values and institutions. This requires rejecting the capitalist ideology that drives debates about consumer privacy, industry regulation, and national security. He puts forward a commons-based approach to argue that democratic media must have elements independent from both state and corporate institutions. This framework views media in terms of public goods. Today, governments may have to subsidize networks that have become necessary. Expanding 'the digital commons' also requires universal principles that enable corporations, governments, activists, journalists and the public to assess changes in digital media. Pursuing the metaphor of social media as a coffeehouse requires a collective ­struggle. Social media ethics cannot be reduced to personal conduct, but must question the technologies, legal frameworks and organizational structures that constitute the networked environment within which citizens pursue their personal, social and political goals in order to achieve a mature social media environment that is both ethically responsive and economically sustainable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the author's views about the U.S. Department of Justice's potential modification of Consent Decrees involving the American Society of Composers Authors & Publishers (ASCAP) and Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI) publishing and royalties firms, and it mentions legal cases involving ASCAP and BMI, as well as a push for music publishers to be allowed to withdraw their New Media services rights from ASCAP and BMI catalogs. A Rate Court is assessed, along with copyright license claims.

The article focuses on reformation of media laws in the U.S and Argentina and public policies related to these changes. Topics discussed include history and evolution of American media laws, history of the formation and reformation of media laws in the 20th century in Argentina and Argentina's Federal Authority of Audiovisual Communication Services, an agency that implement, interpret, and enforce the new media laws. It mentions the establishment of new media law under freedom of the press.

Global movement of technology and consumer goods is constantly increasing and broad international legal frameworks are not comprehensive. One troubling gap in these frameworks is the question of when intellectual property rights (IPRs) should exhaust. International intellectual property law leaves this issue explicitly unaddressed and manufacturers of electronic media have relied increasingly on technological measures such as region codes to fill the gap themselves. Region codes make electronic media playable only in the geographic region of purchase, breaking the global market into segments and allowing media manufacturers significant control over the international flow of goods. In effect\ the codes create a regime of narrow I PR exhaustion despite the fact that international law is silent regarding exhaustion. This system is justified by its supposed economic benefits, yet it creates significant problems as well, such as unfair prices, inefficiencies, and a lack of choice for specific consumers in the global market. Scholars have thus proposed two potential international legal approaches to this harmful practice: a TRIPS revision approach and an international trade law approach. Based on the practical feasibility of each solution, this Comment will argue that a narrow TRIPS revision is the best way to curtail the region code problem. Nevertheless, two difficulties linger. Both TRIPS plus agreements and other IP laws that prohibit TPM circumvention may nullify a region code limit in TRIPS. To solve these problems, the TRIPS revision that handles the region code problem must both stand as a complete statement of international IP law rather than merely a minimum standard, and the international community must move towards a moderate interpretation of the anti-circumvention rules by applying them only to copy-control TPMs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses several aspects of the U.S. copyright law-related first-sale doctrine as of 2014, and it mentions the potential implementation of a digital first-sale doctrine which would deal with goods such as audio files and electronic books (e-books) sold by business enterprises such as computer company Apple Inc. and Internet firm Google Inc. The U.S. Copyright Acts of 1790 and 1909 are examined, along with issues dealing with the rental, ownership, and leasing of products.

An essay is presented on the bills related to the federal media shield folly. Topics discussed include third-party doctrines for cellular and digital technologies, guidelines of the Internal Justice Department regarding the use of the digital technologies like e-mail and cellular phones and public accountability. It also discusses importance of the shield bills in the Congress for providing limitations on the third-party doctrines.

The article focuses on online content regulation in France and Germany. We examine institutional characteristics and actor constellations that led to different policy choices and situate these in the broader discussion on Internet content regulation. While in the early 1990s courts were settling disputes regarding problematic content by applying existing regulation to the digital realm, both countries have since chosen separate regulatory paths. France opted for legislative control, while Germany developed a system of “regulated self-regulation,” in which private actors self-regulate with limited state supervision. Both cases provide insights into the possibilities and limits of state intervention on the Internet. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on various aspects of the first sale doctrine and its impact on the rights of an owner of copyright under the U.S. copyright act or Trademark law. It discusses the problems underlying the application of first sale doctrine to digital media files. It concludes that the doctrine applies to digital copies, but not to the type of digital music downloads that ReDigi Inc. allows to be resold through its service.

The General Court's judgments in Case T-442/08 and related cases annulled Article 3 of the Commission's 2008 decision against CISAC and 20 collecting societies, on the basis of the Commission's failure to prove the required evidentiary legal standard for the existence of a concerted practice on national territorial limitations. These judgments should have an impact on the legislative process of the proposed Directive on collective rights management, namely in what concerns the multi-territorial licensing of rights in musical works for online uses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses potential end-user copyright violations associated with peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing and the anti-piracy efforts currently underway in order to tackle them. This article discusses international developments in terms of trends, issues and solutions aimed at addressing peer-to-peer file sharing of copyrighted material. First, the article introduces P2P file sharing, its increasing significance in the growing digital media economy, and the legal issues surrounding this topic. Next, the article provides a comparative analysis of global efforts and trends in preventing digital piracy by analyzing relevant legislation, case law and practices in multiple jurisdictions, including the United States, United Kingdom, France, Sweden, and Japan. In addition, the article reviews Hong Kong's current case law and proposed legal reforms including an analysis of their deficiencies with respect to addressing P2P copyright infringement. The article concludes with an analysis of existing trends in preventive measures against copyright infringement through P2P file sharing and suggests directions on future legal and non-legal measures that Hong Kong as well as the international community can take in combating digital piracy and copyright infringement through peer-to-peer file sharing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the significance of the end user license agreement (EULA) and its use to prevent actor Bruce Willis's ability to pass on his digital content of iTunes collection. It discusses the case Capitol Records, LLC v. ReDigi, Inc. that informs that first sale doctrine does apply only to material objects not to digital media. It analyzes the laws governing the use of digital media in the U.S.

The article discusses the legal rights of celebrities in America and a proposal for a limited federal right of publicity under the U.S. Lanham Act as of May 2013, focusing on the relationship between the law and media. American freedom of speech rights and state laws regarding publicity are addressed, along with the legal aspects of celebrity brands, unfair competition laws in the U.S., and legal protection's for an individual's identity. The U.S. Supreme Court is also mentioned.

Through an example of a study utilizing the case-law research method, this paper critically assesses whether taking into account both the findings of Mr La Rue (the United Nations Rapporteur on Human Rights) as well as some Court of Justice of the European Union's (CJEU) case-law, website blocking could be implemented in a way which is compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), in particular, with Article 10. Drawing upon,inter alia, Ofcom site blocking review, sections 17 and 18 of the Digital Economy Act 2010 (DEA), section 97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA), and some independent expert evidence, this paper's major argument is that in view of the CJEU SABAM v Scarlet and SABAM v Netlog, the UK government's decision to repeal the website blocking provisions of the DEA appears appropriate. The paper examines the findings of Fox v BT. It contrasts such findings with the CJEU's case-law and in light of the incompatibility of any website blocking measure with the cumulative three-part test set out in the United Nations Rapporteur on Human Rights discusses a number of implications. It concludes that given that the implementation of content blocking systems, such as Cleanfeed is likely to result in general monitoring being carried out; the UK government could possibly be in breach of EU law, namely, Article 15(1) of Directive 2000/31. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the Digital Economy Act (DEA) 2010, already much delayed in its implementation, is fundamentally flawed in three respects. First, there are internal inconsistencies in the complex provisions to be enacted under secondary legislation. In particular, the problem of relying on Internet Protocol (IP) addresses to identify alleged infringers has proved problematic. Secondly, the proposed measures are disproportionate in terms of the offence and severity of the punishment involving a warning-system leading to possible disconnection from the Internet for copyright infringement. Thirdly, the Act is unlikely to succeed in its central purpose to control unauthorised digital copying because of its technological specificity in a fast moving environment, and a lack of consumer acceptance. Finally, by comparing the treatment of these issues under legislation in other countries, in particular New Zealand, alternative copyright enforcement models are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reflects on the legal framework regarding the protection for technological protection measures (TPMs) that are used by content holders to prevent the access and the use of their content in the digital environment. It also focuses on the approaches of the U.S. and the European Union (EU) regarding the protection for TPM which can be used to develop the legislation in China.

This article examines the impact of media witnesses in the field of human rights, looking especially at the rise of citizen media and the use of the Internet and social media by activists and international organizations. Despite the need to interrogate the technological determinism underlying many claims for digital media technologies, the development of 'citizen media' is a promising avenue for international law. New technologies can help actors connect with each other, engage new audiences, and potentially also assist with documentation, evidence gathering and compliance. But such possibilities bring dangers and difficulties which will not easily be resolved. This article examines the methodology of 'witnessing,' its significance for the media and for human rights, and their fusion in the context of digital media forms. These developments occur against a backdrop of the increasing significance given to the role of publicity in the international system. I argue that these processes are emblematic of broader moves towards mediated advocacy in the human rights sector, a phenomenon I term the 'mediatization' of international law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) is a UK-based self-regulatory organization that seeks to reduce the availability of child sexual abuse and criminally obscene content on the Internet. One of the methods used by this organization is the creation of a blacklist of content, which the members disable access to through the use of filtering technologies. The work of the IWF raises fundamental questions about how to regulate free speech in the digital age; it carries out work of critical importance, but if unchecked its operations can have a significant impact on the right to freedom of expression. This article examines whether the IWF’s regulatory structure is sufficient to protect and respect freedom of expression online. The analysis is both internal to the organization by looking at its governance documents, and external to the IWF by examining the applicability of human rights laws. Through this examination, wider issues in Internet regulation and human right are analysed, in particular the increasing impact of businesses on human rights such as free speech, the sufficiency of self-regulation to address human rights issues, and the limits in extending direct application of human rights laws to private organizations. This article concludes by identifying the risks with self-regulatory regimes when human rights are at stake and by framing the principles needed for accountability of such bodies as the IWF for freedom of expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the effect of piracy in the digital world with respect to the digital security designed in the European Union and the U.S. The enactment of legislation by several European Union countries like France and Great Britain are designed for the protection of fashion design. Information on the protection of the intellectual property laws of the U.S. that includes the protection of copyright, trademarks and patent is also presented.

In recent years, businesses have discovered a new way to capture consumer loyalty: through their noses. Companies have begun to invest heavily in the development of scent marks and innovative digital scent technology that will disseminate signature scents through the Internet and television; however, the standards surrounding scent mark registration and infringement remain hazy due to a lack of precedent and conflicting global legal standards. While US and European courts have determined that scent marks can exist under current laws, the registration requirements and infringement standards remain unclear. This Note analyzes the four major issues that arise in scent mark jurisprudence: (1) the written description requirement, (2) the application of the functionality doctrine, (3) the possibility of scent depletion, and (4) the risks of scent confusion. Imposing a categorized registration process and a simplified scent mark infringement analysis rooted in semiotic--or sign-based--theory can eliminate the concerns surrounding scent mark analysis. A system that includes a registration process that requires the presentation of a trademark's semiotic elements as well as an infringement analysis that mandates only the examination of consumer-confusion surveys secures the legitimacy of scent mark registration and serves the traditional rationales for trademark law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the First Amendment to the U.S. constitution for regulating an access to digital media platforms. It presents information that the U.S. American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 provide nondiscriminatory access to the digital platforms. It differentiates the network layer platform from application layer platform. It discusses that the new analytical framework "infrastructural scarcity" incorporates the best features of negative and positive right positions.

As the process of creation in the age of digital media becomes more fluid, one pervasive theme has been the desire for attribution: from the creator perspective, to receive credit for what one does (and to have credit not falsely attributed) and from the audience's perspective, to understand the source of material with which one engages. But our norms of attribution reflect some inconsistencies in defining the relationship among name, identity, and authenticity. A blog post by a writer identified only by a pseudonym may prove to be very influential in the court of public opinion, while the use of anonymous sources by established journalists may be viewed as unethical. Supreme Court jurisprudence both touts the benefits of anonymity and decries it as a barrier to the free flow of information. In the commercial realm, consumers file suit when the memoir they have purchased turns out to be largely fiction but seem far less concerned when a company emerges from a public relations disaster with a new name, leaving its old one to the dustbin of history. This conflicted response may be further complicated by the fact that we think about names in a very personal way, as a core part of our identity. But names are not, strictly speaking, our identity-they are merely symbols of our identity that denote a particular set of characteristics at a particular time. Indeed, as naming theory tells us, the denotative function of a name is what makes a word a name at all. It is for this reason that an individual or a corporation can adopt a new name without being accused offraud and why a company can sell products under more than one trademark. Naming law-whether the law of personal names or the law of trademarks-tends to reflect these principles of naming theory. In large part, the law focuses on a name or mark's denotative effect, interfering only when confusion or changes to the essential nature of the referent renders the name's identifying function uncertain. And, indeed, in the instances when the law is inconsistent with naming theory-attempting to regulate the connotations associated with names rather than their denotative function-we might question whether it is achieving an appropriate goal. Confining naming law to this important but limited function achieves a balance between respecting the autonomy of individuals and entities to choose the names with which they represent themselves to the public and ensuring that such choices do not significantly frustrate the flow of information that allows the public to engage in decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several federal district courts in 2009 and 2010 interpreted a relatively obscure provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to grant a potentially broad right of attribution to owners of copyright in creative works. The statutory provision prohibits removal or alteration of copyright management information. The law gives reason for both hope and fear for news organizations. On one hand, an attribution requirement is seen by some in the news industry as relief from negative effects of technology, including online news aggregators. On the other hand, news organizations already have been sued under the copyright management provision for their conduct in newsgathering. This article examines the copyright management information provision and concludes that transformation will be a key consideration in balancing the interest in attribution with preservation of newsgathering's reliance on access to and fair use of copyright-protected works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]