Appropriate for the Digital Age? Copyright and the Internet

This paper, eventually published as two separate chapters, surveys the major issues affecting copyright as the result of digitisation and the rise of the Internet. In particular it considers infringement, exceptions, technical protection measures and rights management systems, and licensing. The paper concludes by asking how copyright may support realisation of the Internet’s potential for all legitimate stakeholders. It seems clear that the commercial possibilities require copyright protection coupled with some form or other of digital rights management. But it is equally clear that the individual consumers for whom the commercial products are ultimately intended will not accept a merely passive role in this marketplace.