New International IP Laws on the Horizon
Information Today, Vol. 21, No. 1, p. 17, January 2004
3 Pages Posted: 16 Jul 2010
Date Written: January 1, 2004
Abstract
The information community is a global community, this is well known. When I sit in a Russian Internet café and access LexisNexis (owned by Reed Elsevier, a Dutch multinational corporation), or sit in my office in Pittsburgh and review e-journals provided by Kluwer Online, I am interacting with the information world in a manner that was impossible a mere decade ago. This global influence also creates significant legal problems for information providers, such as identifying and selecting jurisdictions, determining the applicable law, and enforcing intellectual property rights.
Partial solutions to these problems often take one of two forms. In some cases, information providers take steps to ensure that their content complies with as many countries’ laws as possible. This, however, can have the effect of limiting content availability for fear of running afoul of some country’s law. The alterative is new laws and treaties from multinational organizations such as the European Union and the World Intellectual Property Organization. Proposals from these organizations can address dozens of jurisdictions under a single legal umbrella, making compliance more manageable.
The last several weeks have seen a number of developments in the international law-making front that warrant attention here in the U.S.
Keywords: intellectual property law, IP law, copyright law, copyright regulations, lawsuits, reform, fair dealing, fair use, international law, DMCA, United States, United Kingdom, European Union, EU, World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO, compliance, enforcement, jurisdiction
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