The Management of Author’s and Related Rights in the Digital Environment

The research report The Management of Author’s Rights and Related Rights in the Digital Environment examines the question of the management of author’s rights with special regards to the remuneration system for private copying and the legal protection of technological measures. The report includes the study in comparative law and the empirical research. The legal part presents the comparative analysis of legal protection of technological measures and the modification of the Slovenian remuneration system for private copying according to the European directive (2001/29/EC). Empirical research consists of two parts: a survey of private users and the semi-structured in-depth interviews with 35 the most important partakers in the system of the management of author’s rights (artists, collective organizations, publishers and public institutions). The conclusion of the legal part of research is that Slovenian legislator did not take into consideration the legal protection of technological measures while proposing a new remuneration system for private copying. Empirical researches present the state-of-art in the field of private copying. The conclusion of the survey was that, firstly, relatively a small part of private copying comprises contents for which it is possible to ask remunerations for private copying. Secondly, the provision that the exception of author’s rights, the right to private copying, should subsist the technological measures turned out to be inefficient. Quite many private users told that they were not able to make tree legal copies of copyright protected works they have bought. The report on interviews examines some of important social and cultural effects of the management of author’s rights: the economic position of the majority of authors seems to be worsening lately, the distortive effects of collective organizations, the new business models of publishers and distributors based on the application of technological measures or intentional rejection of technological measures, the huge problems public institutions lately encounter because of digitalization. The legal studies and empirical researches present new serious facts and arguments that need to be taken into consideration when a new remuneration system for private copying will be proposed. The research report raises, moreover, important issues about the unsatisfactory effect of author’s right system on the economic position of authors and the menace to public access of cultural and scientific goods in public institutions after the digitalization.

Project coworkers: Maja Bogataj Jančič, Matej Kovačič and Aldo Milohnić