[PAML] Management - Copyright in the digital age

As digital technology is used increasingly for information and entertainment delivery, the issue of copyright management becomes more complex. Simply identifying and managing the hundreds of different rights holders in a multimedia product can be a difficult task. Enforcing copyright for online information is problematic because the technology provides for broad access and has the capacity for high-quality, high-speed reproduction and dissemination. Intellectual property issues including, for example, performers' rights and moral rights, take on greater significance as technology allows for end-users to manipulate and control information. The Australian Federal Government recognises that existing legislation may not provide adequate protection in this digital climate and is currently looking at a series of "digital agenda reforms" to copyright legislation.

Since the early nineties the use of digital technologies in the information and entertainment industries has increased rapidly. The Internet has evolved from a low-profile, text-based research network into a mainstream, multimedia, public-access network providing tens of millions of people worldwide with low cost to information, entertainment, software and services in multimedia formats.

Multimedia products that combine text, images, sound, video, and computer animation, can contain hundreds of different copyrights: literary works (text, software and the overall compilation of materials), artistic works (photographs, drawings and other still images), musical works (music), dramatic works (scripts and lyrics), sound recordings (recorded music clips), cinematograph films (animation, film and video clips) and performances. Managing copyright for such a product requires identification of both the spectrum of rights inherent in a product, and the percentage of entitlement due to the various creators.

Enforcing these rights in the digital environment, then, relies on the ability to track and control use of protected material. The digital environment in which these multimedia products live provides enormous potential for uncontrolled access to copyright-protected material. Digitised content can be replicated without loss of quality, used without degradation, simultaneously displayed through many different exhibition media, and easily broken into component pieces for re-use in a new work. With the rapid growth of the Internet and online services, it is unlikely that the current bundle of exclusive rights is broad enough to enable copyright owners to control all economically significant uses of their works. Copyright does not provide protection for any 'use' that falls outside the scope of the exclusive rights and therefore allows for free use of copyright material in ways not specifically covered in the legislation.

To make copyright more effective in the digital age, the Australian Federal Government is currently considering a

package of 'digital agenda' reforms. Many of these reforms reflect new international copyright standards established under the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty. Although the details are yet to be finalised, it appears likely that there will soon be a number of changes to Australian law.

Among these changes are inclusions of performers' rights and moral rights. As information is increasingly created in a digital format it brings intellectual property issues to the forefront. Historically writers and composers have enjoyed strong copyright protection for their works while the level of copyright protection afforded to performers of those works has been relatively weak. Performers instead exercise their terms and conditions through the award structures and contract negotiations. In recent years the rights of Australian performers to control unauthorised use of their performances have been recognised and it is increasingly likely that stronger, copyright-style protection of performances may soon be recognised under law.

In addition, Australian copyright law may soon also protect the 'moral rights' of individual creators. The key areas of moral rights are attribution and integrity. This issue applies particularly to the interactive component of many digital products that give the end-user power to direct and manipulate the way the product is viewed and experienced. A product could, for example, permit the end-user to direct the movement of a performer on screen or to re-arrange a piece of music. When creating interactive multimedia products, therefore, it is necessary to ensure moral rightsholders are aware of these possibilities and to confirm that interactive features will not be considered to be an infringement of moral rights. Failure to manage these issues early in a multimedia project will increase the risk of disputes as the project evolves.

Participants in the PAML Pilot Project proposed models of copyright management to explore the various copyright reform issues related to performers' intellectual property rights and the proposed reforms in relation to digital technology.