A GJ Frontiers article.

Abstract

The current struggle between the users’ right to the information and the protection of the authors and producers through the intellectual property as for the different devices available in the Internet is the background idea of this survey, in search for an accurate balance. The new informational tools existing in the cyberspace, such as databases, multimedia works, search engines, web pages, hipertext links, on line publications and others, are examined mainly from the perspective of the new sui generis right for databases producers in force in European Union. Those instruments and others as the domain names (and their connection to trademarks legislation), the software (and the current European debate on its patentability), the technical means of collecting of royalties are dealt with mainly from the perspective of the existing Spanish legislation and case law, as a token of the European treatment on the topic. This essay takes into account the more recent Directives on intellectual property in the European Union (such as the Directive 29/2001/CE on copyright in the Information Society, the Directive 2004/48/EC on enforcement of intellectual property rights; or, on the other topic mentioned, the Directive 2003/98/EC on the re-use of public sector information) and makes a concise comparison in some points as the private copy or the collecting societies with the United States norms as the Digital Copyright Millenium Act.

Originally published in Global Jurist Frontiers.

Recommended Citation

Cámara Lapuente, Sergio (2004) "Authors and Users in the Cyberspace: A Survey on Intellectual Property and the Internet from the Spanish (and European) Legal System," Global Jurist Frontiers: Vol. 4 : Iss. 2, Article 2.
Available at: http://www.bepress.com/gj/frontiers/vol4/iss2/art2