Use of Copyright Content on the Internet: Considerations on Excludability and Collective Licensing

Abstract

The Internet has been a catalyst for problems latent within the copyright system. Fundamentally, the question is to determine under what circumstances should a copyright holder have a right to exclude others from using her copyright work on the Internet? This is the topic of this chapter. The underlying hypothesis is that policy analysis concerning copyright has shifted because it is now facing a number of formidable opponents, in most cases for the first time on that scale. Those opponents are other rights, including privacy. Copyright is not or no longer a closed system with exceptions looping back to a set of exclusive rights in which an appropriate equilibrium in the regulation of knowledge creation and dissemination was supposed to be reached. After an analysis of the problems that have emerged in trying to use copyright to exclude use on the Internet, the Chapter suggests possible solutions articulated along three types of use: those that should be free; those that should be licensed collectively (i.e., where the power to exclude is replaced with a remuneration system accompanied by standard conditions) and a small set of uses that can be licensed transactionally. In suggesting a greater role for collective (as opposed to individual) licensing, the paper considers the introduction of an Extended Repertoire System in Canada.

Keywords: Copyrigth, Collective Licensing, Extended Licensing, Canada

JEL Classification: 034