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Copyright as Talisman: Expanding 'Property' in Digital Works

2002; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 16; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/1360086022000003955

1364-6885

David A. Rice,

Intellectual Property Law

Digital technology facilitates the distribution and use of computer programs, graphical works, sound recordings, audio-visual works, and database products. This creates new commercial market opportunities, but ones compromised by the great ease and low cost of making and even disseminating unauthorized exact copies. Copyright generally makes such conduct unlawful, yet monitoring and enforcement costs severely limit the utility of direct enforcement. Content producers therefore seek adjunctive protection through laws regulating circumvention of producers' technological safeguards and enforcing contract restrictions on copy use and transfer. They also promote enactment of strong criminal penalties for copyright infringement and violation of new digital work protection laws. This increasingly has made copyright less the object of protection than a talisman in promoting and framing new protections that accord digital works substantially greater 'property-like' stature and legal protection than that created by copyright.