INTERVIEW:
Question 1
What are according the specific legal aspects involved with Internet, in your opinion ?
Answer
There are many issues. Through the Internet it's quite difficult to know who the author of
the work is because many people invest in that process and logically you have also many
people involved in receiving at the same time. Legally speaking it is very important to
know who is the author, who has the rights and who is using the work. Traditionally you
would apply the law of the country in which the infringement took place. If the right of
the authors are infringed, then you will use the country's law only if they have accepted
international treatment, that is to say, the country that has the rights would assimilate
the rights and its laws and apply the rights of its own country to the author. But now
since we don't know who the author is and there might be many authors, you might have to
apply the laws of many countries, so it's very important to establish internationally. In
principle we can say in the case of Internet, the law of the particular country should be
applied. For instance, the law of country where the subject is being discussed. And not
any other principle.
Question 2
So we need co-operation between many countries...
Answer
We need co-operation between countries. However, I'd like to emphasise that we don't have
to reinvent the wheel because the duty of international conventions such as the Bern
Convention on Intellectual Property or the laws of copyright in various countries, the
principles of law, have been established many years ago, many at the end of the last
century and at the beginning of this century. Therefore, we have been able to adjust new
technologies to these old concepts, so we don't always have to think in terms of new
concepts but rather how to adjust the existing concepts through new technologies. If you
take the question of copying for instance, the Xerox. Is it different copying with Xerox
or copying with computers? Maybe it's the same. You have additional copies that are
infringing the right of the author and you just have to apply the principle that copying
without the consent of the author is illegal, so we may need some adjustments and the
international organisation in this area of the World Intellectual Property Organisation is
having a system of discussions, a series of discussions on the organisation of laws in
different countries and we may need some adjustments but I think that the main outcome is
that while we have here technological revolution, it's a revolution in technology, it's
not necessarily a revolution in law and the basic laws that exist both internationally and
nationally might be adjusted to this new technology.
Question 3
Can you tell us something with regard to moral rights and integrity of data in the digital
domain?
Answer
Well, this is a very important issue. It's an example of a person who is involved with the
Internet and is connected with the Louvre in Paris or with the British Museum and he
obtains a copy of a Picasso painting and then he makes changes to the picture. And then he
circulates this new work of his to different persons. There are a number of issues. First
of all is the integrity of the work. He has changed the work and thus has he infringed on
the moral right of Picasso? Assuming that his works are still protected . And then he has
infringed the economic right of the author by circulating or distributing his new work. So
you have here a combination of copyright issues that are involved in the Internet because
for the first time it's possible for this person to get the painting, to put it through
the Internet system, and to recirculate it in a different way. So one can consider this of
course as new copies, but of course they are not the same. This is one of the issues that
I have mentioned that we have always been thinking in terms of new copies of existing
works. Now here you don't have tangible copies; they exist only on the computer. At the
same time it is a copy that has been distributed without the consent of the painter or the
author.
Question 4
Do you believe that the law should try to facilitate a market that is growing today. With
regard to CD-ROM for example, some say it is very difficult to create new programs, new
titles because of the legal difficulties that are involved.
Answer
Well, you see this is the issue of the copyright system that because you always have on
the one hand the rights of the consumers to buy these documents or these editions in a
cheaper way, but at the same time we have to conserve and preserve the right of the author
because this is his property and many people find it difficult to realise that
intellectual property is property as much as a house of a man or other forms of property.
This is something that the author is entitle to receive remuneration for. So one cannot
only think in terms of the consumers. You have to think in terms of making possible for
consumers who get these products in a visible way but at the same time you must observe
the right of the author be it through the traditional system of copyright or through the
more technological system of producing new copies, but again they must also be protected
by the principle of copyright.
|
