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Chapter 8 of the Copyright Review Committee‘s Consultation Paper considers whether the Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000 (also here) creates barriers to innovation by entrepreneurs (update: you can download a pdf of the Paper here (via DJEI) or here (from this site)).

Although the interests of rights-holders are central to copyright law, the law recognises other interests as well, and entrepreneurs feature on both sides of this balance: sometimes as rights-holders, but increasingly as internet start-ups seeking to develop novel methods of engagement with content. A properly balanced copyright system should seek not only to reward initial creativity but also to encourage follow-on innovation. Hence, as with the balance between rights-holders and users in the previous chapter, one of the main questions for the Review is whether the copyright balance between rights-holders and entrepreneurs now requires further amendment, in particular to incentivise innovation.

The chapter begins by considering the contribution which entrepreneurs make to innovation. They are a key source of the innovation identified in chapter 2, and some of the submissions argued that inflexibility in Irish and EU copyright regimes hinder innovation, and that access to and use of legal digital content ought to be made easier and more attractive in Ireland and Europe.…

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Chapter 6 of the Copyright Review Committee‘s Consultation Paper considers whether the Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000 (also here) creates barriers to innovation by online intermediaries. Intermediaries run up against the copyright interests of rights-holders in several ways: they may be primarily liable for breach of copyright where their own activities infringe copyright; and they may be secondarily liable for breach of copyright where the activities of their users infringe copyright (update: you can download a pdf of the Paper here (via DJEI) or here (from this site)).

First, the most likely way that intermediaries may be primarily liable for breach of copyright is where the technological processes of transmitting data result in transient and incidental copies of the data. Article 5(1) of the European Union Copyright Directive provides a defence in such circumstances which has been transposed into Irish law by section 87(1) and 244(1) of the 2000 Act; and the Paper considers this transposition.

Second, the most likely way in which intermediaries may be secondarily liable for breach of copyright is where the activities of their users infringe copyright; Irish law, implementing a European Directive, now provides for some immunities in certain circumstances from such secondary liability; and the Paper considers this transposition.…

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Chapter 5 of the Copyright Review Committee‘s Consultation Paper briefly considers the position of collecting societies (update: you can download a pdf of the Paper here (via DJEI) or here (from this site)). Where rights-holders have established such societies to grant licences in copyrighted works and collect copyright royalties for distribution back to the rights-holders, they give effect to rights-holders’ rights in a very important practical way, and therefore constitute an important means by which rights-holders manage their copyrights and are rewarded for their investments and innovation.

The Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000 (also here) provides for licensing schemes and the registration of collecting societies, but this is an bewilderingly byzantine area in practice, and in chapter 3 of the Paper, the Committee raised the question of whether many of those issues could be resolved by means of a body like the Copyright Council sketched in that chapter.

If a Council is not established, this chapter asks if there are any other practical mechanisms which might resolve those issues. It also asks if there are any issues relating to copyright licensing and collecting societies which were not addressed in earlier chapters but which can be resolved by amendments to the Act of 2000.…

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