Rethinking Copyright Harmonization

60 Pages Posted: 31 Mar 2020 Last revised: 2 Apr 2020

See all articles by Clark D. Asay

Clark D. Asay

Brigham Young University - J. Reuben Clark Law School

Date Written: March 9, 2020

Abstract

For nearly half a century, the United States has been one of the main proponents of harmonizing the world’s copyright laws. To that end, the U.S. government has worked diligently to persuade (and, in some cases, bully) most of the world’s countries to adopt copyright standards that resemble those found in the U.S. The primary reason for this push to harmonize the world’s copyright laws is simple: the U.S. has long been a net exporter of copyrighted works, and so the U.S. government has sought to ensure that other countries provide U.S. authors with the same economic rights those authors enjoy at home.

But that rather simple calculus in favor of copyright harmonization has changed. Today, the U.S. government must also take into account the interests of its technology sector in determining its positions on both domestic and international copyright law efforts. This is because technology providers are also a significant export of the U.S., and their copyright interests do not always align with those of large copyright owners. For instance, many of those technology companies, including Google and Twitter, use copyrighted works as a vital part of providing their technological services, including by way of exhibiting copyrighted content at the direction of their users, in response to user searches, or as part of services such as Google News. Consequently, continuing to ratchet up worldwide copyright standards through international harmonization may often negatively affect the interests of such companies by restricting their ability to liberally use copyrighted works within their services. In short, with these new technological entrants, the political economy of copyright harmonization has significantly changed, and those changes are poised to exert considerable influence on copyright’s global future.

In this Article, I map out the key new players in copyright’s new political economy, and I grapple with how their often divergent interests are likely to affect global copyright law and policy making going forward. I then examine the European Union’s newly minted Copyright Directive as an example of these divergent forces at play within the U.S., Europe, and elsewhere. Finally, I assess whether the altered political economy of copyright harmonization is a positive or negative development.

Keywords: copyright, intellectual property, innovation

Suggested Citation

Asay, Clark D., Rethinking Copyright Harmonization (March 9, 2020). Indiana Law Journal (2021 Forthcoming), BYU Law Research Paper No. 20-11, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3551421

Clark D. Asay (Contact Author)

Brigham Young University - J. Reuben Clark Law School ( email )

540 JRCB
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
90
Abstract Views
711
Rank
513,289
PlumX Metrics