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- Title
Rights Expression on Digital Communication Networks: Some Implications for Copyright.
- Authors
Cunningham, Alan
- Abstract
Systems are being developed with the aim of managing the use of copyright protected works within the digital communications network. Such fights management systems are considered integral for the commercial exploitation and control of protected works within the new media. A central technology in such systems is fights expression languages, computer languages used to define and represent legal rights and relationships central to protected works in electronic licences. An electronic licence constructed with a rights expression language, however, may have difficulty in adequately representing and implementing legal rights and relationships central to copyright law. This difficulty is illustrated by examining how mandatory copyright exceptions under UK law for databases and computer programs might be incapable of proper representation and implementation. The particular difficulties for databases and computer programs might be representative of a larger theoretical difficulty with the digital management of legal rights and relationships. In particular, the abstraction and distillation of fights and relationships by rights expression languages recalls difficulties encountered by developers of legal expert systems. Discussion of formalism and legal expert systems might be of assistance in appreciating the shortcomings of rights representation objectives, and, in a broader sense, the difficulties in using technology to represent legal rights and relationships.
- Subjects
UNITED Kingdom; MANAGEMENT information systems; COPYRIGHT of electronic data; DIGITAL communications; INTELLECTUAL property; COMMERCIAL law
- Publication
International Journal of Law & Information Technology, 2005, Vol 13, Issue 1, p1
- ISSN
0967-0769
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1093/ijlit/eai001