The Digital Reproduction Right

Abstract:     
A great amount of intellectual energy has been spent in recent years on attempts to remodel exemptions to exclusive rights, and as specifically discussed in this chapter, exceptions to the reproduction right, in efforts to prevent overprotection and preserve the so-called delicate copyright balance.

The analysis in this chapter and the limited force of its own proposal concerning the question of fixation lead to the conclusion that an exclusive right tailored around the concept of fixation of message signals cannot continue to be one of the most basic building blocks of copyright law.

It shall be posited that and explained why the reproduction right belongs to past chapters in copyright law’s evolution; it has grown evidently unsuitable to lead the copyright system into the digital future. This is because the notion of fixation is structurally inimical to contemporary modes and methods of providing and gaining access to digital information. Fixation, in other words, is the “yesterday” of copyright law. Modern-day legislatures will sooner or later have to tackle the problem of finding alternative concepts around which the apparatus of exclusivity is tailored.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 46

Keywords: reproduction right, copyright, access-right

Accepted Paper Series