A Discussion of the Copyright Industrys Assignment

A Discussion of the Copyright Industrys - Assignment Example The internet has been famously defined as a network of networks, and the denser these networks become; the more complicated it becomes to prevent the bane of copyright infringement and other intellectual property violations from occurring. 2Even though the courts have been willing to intervene where there has been an infringement of copyright, the practical difficulties of managing copyright violations arise whenever the "sheer scale" and "speed" of the internet causes high-speed reproduction of the material to be achieved without actually being detected. The development of copyright law can actually be traced back to a time when there was no technology or mechanism by way of which it would be possible to replicate copies of written material. It was not possible to achieve any large scale infringement of copyrighted material as it is today from the comfort of our homes on the internet. Within British legal history, it is said that the King used the Royal Prerogative as far back as 1662 to pass the Licensing Act of 16623. The first real Copyright Protection Act, however, came as the "The Statute of Anne" giving the author copyright privileges for a fixed time period. On an international level, the Berne Convention in 1887 defined the scope of copyright protection and is still an important part of international intellectual property law.4 The advent of the photocopier followed subsequently by, home audio recording, video recording, and finally, the Personal Computer (PC) allowed digitized and rapid copying. The modern Copyright Infringer does not need a large factory of copying machines to create illegal copies of, copyrighted material.5 All in all the challenge for copyright holders has never been greater. The law provides legal remedies available to copyright owners to prevent others from copying the product and to protect original works involving some degree of skill, effort, and judgment. In England, The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 gives protection to books, films, videos, plays, music, and drawings, all of which can make it onto the internet in some form or another.This law protects computer software as a form of literary work and even large databases form copyrighted material have been given protection under the Copyright and Rights in Databases Regulations 1997. Under the Rules, the copyright owner can apply for an injunction to prevent misuse of his copyrighted material and to order the infringer to return the infringed "intellectual property" and maybe a grant for damages. All this, however, looks very nice in the Statute books but the power of the internet to disrupt Copyright mechanisms has often been compared to a force which is always connected and is everywhere and anywhere all of the time.Very often copyright owners feel helpless in the face of technologically sophisticated infringements. For example in the famous case of Napster music files were created in MP3 format and Peer to Peer file sharing began. Within months 50 million people were using a service which was a blatant violation of copyright laws.