Artigos de revistas sobre o tema "Copyright Tribunal"

The Act of February 4, 1994 on Copyright and Related Rights, which regulates issues related to the protection of copyrights, belongs to the private law system (its provi- sions protect the private interest). However, the Act includes both administrative and criminal law provisions aimed at protecting the public interest. The literature rightly points out that the systemic division into public and private law is becoming increasingly less pronounced, due to the permeation of legal domains belonging to both systems. An example of such interpenetration are the provisions of copyright law. This statement is significant for the considerations made in this article due to the statutory method of penalising certain behaviour contained in the provisions of the Copyright and Related Rights Act. Criminal law provisions, systemically related to public law and protecting the public interest, contain references to the provisions of the Copyright and Related Rights Act regulating the scope of copyright protection, i.e. private law norms. In the context of the requirements that should be met by criminal law, such a reference raises doubts, which are particularly highlighted in Art. 115 para. 3 of the Copyright and Related Rights Act. This issue is impor- tant because the Constitutional Tribunal in its judgment of 17 February 2015, Ref. K 15/13 recognised this provision as constitutional. Therefore, he concluded that the principle of the specificity of a criminal act does not preclude the legislator from using terms that are imprecise or vague if their designations can be determined. At the same time, the Constitutional Tribunal has not presented any arguments indicating that in this case the determination of the designates of Art. 115 para. 3 of the Copyright and Related Rights Act does not cause any difficulties. The author of this article attempts to determine the extent of criminal liability in the event of a violation of author’s moral rights (Article 115 section 3 of the Copyright and Related Rights Act), at the same time indicating the difficulties that are associated with the unambiguous determination of behaviour which Art. 115 para. 3 of the Copyright and Related Rights Act penalises.

This site contains information on copyright, designs, patents and trademarks. The legal decisions page includes selected decisions issued by the Patent Office since the beginning of 1998 and links through to the Patents Court website, European Patent Office website and Copyright Tribunal. News and press releases on aspects of intellectual property and the Trade Mark, Patent and Design Journal notices can also be viewed here with all pages including a note of when they were last updated. A page with information on patent and trademark searches and a search facility for the whole site is available. A list of forms can be accessed and viewed along with guidance notes and fees information. Progress on implementation of the EU Copyright Directive is brief but helpful. The glossary of terms covers very few terms and some pages would benefit from hyperlinks being added such as the information about international treaties. URL: http://www.patent.gov.uk/copy/index.htm

Abstract In 1985, Marianne Mele Hall, the chairman of the Copyright Royalty Tribunal, resigned after a controversy surrounding her role in writing Lawrence Hafstad’s book, Foundations of Sand (1982), which included several racist passages. Although at first she claimed to have been the co-author, when the scandal broke she tried to avoid the political controversy by describing her role as a ghost writer or an editor. While the effort was to no avail and she had to resign, it nevertheless prompted an interesting epistolary conversation between the information scientist, Eugene Garfield, and the sociologist of science, Robert K. Merton, about the differences between the two terms. This essay looks at that correspondence and situates it alongside the emergence of the information industry affecting copyright.

The article provides a comprehensive analysis of the various legal positions copyright opinions on topical issues of the establishment and functioning of the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). This article is based on a review of the results of two decades of the ICTY, refl ected on the offi cial website of the Tribunal, with the focus on the problematic points of his work.

Realization of a nullum crimen sine lege certa principle in light of Article 115 Paragraph 3 of a Polish Copyright ActThe aim of the article is to analyze the content of Article 115 Paragraph 3 of the Polish Copyright Act and to examine the constitutionality of the provision based on the nullum crimen sine lege certa principle expressed in Article 42 of the Constitution. The basis for the allegation of the unconstitutionality of the provision is the Article’s use of the phrase: “Who […] otherwise violates”, which is, in the opinion of the doctrine, imprecise and contrary to the principle of legal certainty in matters of criminal law. Basing on the quoted regulations and the practice the author tries to answer a question whether the content of Article 115 Paragraph 3 of the Polish Copyright Act is constitutional and subjects the issue of using such clauses to the polemics. The article presents arguments for the rightness of such regulation as well as opposing views and the final conclusion based on the judgment of February 17, 2015, in which the Constitutional Tribunal adjudicated on the conformity of the regulation with the Constitution. Despite the approving position of the Constitutional Tribunal the issue of the constitutionality of the provision is still controversial and causes problems in the classification of acts as prohibited under the Copyright Act. Nevertheless, the use of complementary clauses in particular containing the phrase: “Who […] otherwise violates” seems to be unavoidable due to the dynamic development of technology and law. The principle of legal certainty can be implemented using a pro-constitutional interpretation in order to maximize the alignment of legal norms with the objectives and values expressed in the Constitution. This paper will also examine the secondary issue of criminal law protection of intellectual property rights with an emphasis on copyright law.

Copyright grants exclusive rights to authors of qualifying works. However, the Copyright Act 1994 permits reproduction, communication and commercial exploitation of certain artistic works which are on permanent public display. This exclusion from copyright, which is widely referred to as "freedom of panorama", is distinguishable from other permitted uses which tend to be narrow in scope and commonly manifest an element of fair dealing. Like other corresponding provisions of British heritage copyright legislation, New Zealand's freedom of panorama exclusion is significantly wider than comparable permitted uses in other jurisdictions. This article examines freedom of panorama in New Zealand. Note is taken of the Waitangi Tribunal report Wai 262, which considered among other issues the protection of Māori cultural treasures within the intellectual property law system. As points of comparison, selected overseas approaches to freedom of panorama are outlined. This article questions whether the current exclusion strikes an appropriate balance between competing rights and interests.

The article contains the response to the criticism of the solution regulated under article 79 section 1 point 3 letter b of the Copyright and Related Rights Act made before the Constitutional Tribunal rendered its judgment of 23 June 2015 repealing he above-mentioned legal provision. The genesis of article 79 section 1 point 3 letter b leads to the conclusion that it constituted an autonomous institution of the Polish copyright law. In particular, the claim for payment of a triple amount of the respective remuneration, where the copyright infringement is culpable, was not of a penal nature, neither was it contradictory to the Polish model of liability for damages, moreover at the same time, it was in accordance with the provisions of the Directive 2004/48/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on the enforcement of intellectual property rights.

Resumen: El doble objetivo de esta voz es: a) concretar el contenido jurídico del derecho de acceso a la cultura, para lo que se procederá a b) analizar la jurisprudencia más paradigmática del Tribunal Europeo de Derechos Humanos en relación con la protección de expresiones culturales. No se trata, pues, de una aproximación teórica a lo que sea cultura, sino de precisar, en la medida de lo posible, el alcance de un derecho poco estudiado dentro del marco geográfico europeo.Palabras clave: Derecho de Acceso a la Cultura, Derecho a la Cultura, Derecho a la Libertad de Expresión, Libertad de creación artística, Tribunal Europeo de Derechos Humanos, Copyright Abstract: This voice has been written with a double objective, namely a) to concretize the legal content of the right of access to culture, so we will proceed b) to analyze some of the most paradigmatic case-law of the European Court of Human Rights in relation to the protection of the culture. Therefore, it is not a theoretical approach to what is culture, but to specify the scope of a right so unstudied within the European geographical framework.Keywords: Right of Access to Culture, Right to Culture, Right to Freedom of Expression, Right to artistic freedom, European Court of Human Rights, Copyright.

Este trabajo analiza cómo la armonización europea del derecho de autor ha expandido al copyright británico. El artículo comienza explicando de qué manera se puede entender la expresión expansión. En segundo lugar, se analizará cómo la sentencia Infopaq International A/S con Danske Dagblades Forening ha generado un proceso de expansión de los conceptos fundamentales del copyright británico. Luego de esto, se analizará cómo han cambiado las interpretaciones jurisprudenciales del derecho británico sobre los conceptos de originalidad, objeto de protección e infracción de derechos. Este cambio de interpretación, se concluye, ha tenido un efecto expansivo que afecta las libertades de los usuarios y favorece las pretensiones de propiedad de autores y de quienes ostentan derechos patrimoniales sobre las obras.

Digital Age misappropriation and plagiarism of published online news content by some South African media proprietors are negatively affecting professionalism and integrity in journalism. Such infringements invariably lead to great tension, harmful competition patterns and dwindling revenues. Frequently, digital news misappropriation creates factual distortions, impairing the democratic functions of journalism and healthy national discourse motivated by legitimate public interest considerations. A 2019 Reuters Institute Digital News Report revealed that, globally, South Africans spend the greatest number of hours browsing online, with 36% of the population enjoying sharing news content, while 40% enjoy commenting on news via social media or news websites. While the Digital Age has generated many forms of active players in journalism, this paper is limited to digital infringement conflicts and contestations between accountable and established media proprietors or competitors. This qualitative contribution proposes that media proprietors collectively seek an alternative dispute resolution approach to copyright infringements through a comprehensive ‘Media Arbitration Copyright Infringements Code’ with incorporated ‘Hot News Misappropriation Doctrine’ provisions to regulate the conduct of the media and to address proliferating digital infringements. The Media Code should also guide the proposed ‘Media Copyright Tribunal’ operating within a commercial arbitration framework in dispute adjudication and resolution. This paper argues that the Media Code with the Misappropriation Doctrine is a more viable approach for addressing media copyright disputes because it largely protects facts contained in published news content. Furthermore, a Media Code that is drafted addressing media copyright digital infractions using the ethical benchmarks set by the ‘Press Code of Ethics and Conduct for South African Print and Online Media’ editorial guidelines interpreted through a flexible informal commercial arbitration framework that expedites dispute resolution is desirable. This paper is largely concerned with the court’s findings in Moneyweb (Pty) Limited v Media 4 Limited and Another, and the fact that it took about three years for the dispute to be resolved. Moreover, this paper argues that the current Copyright Act 98 of 1978 is less effective in dealing with the ethical quandary faced by journalism in the Digital Age.

REEMISSION IN THE LIGHT OF CHANGES IN THE COPYRIGHT LAWSummaryAn author’s output, artistic performances, rights to phonograms and videograms, rights to radio and television broadcast, constitute an essential element of the media market. The audiences respond and in the result prospects for advantages depend on the attractiveness of the authors’ and their artistic input. It is obvious, that the broadcasters’ dream is that the program is both: attractive to the audience and cheap. Broadcasters’ economic domination results in the possibility to force lower remuneration paid to authors and artists. This domination, however, is only an illusion, because the worse economic conditions for artists and authors are, the lower quality of programs we can get. It is impossible to expect an author or artist to accept unprofitable conditions.The amendments to the Copyright Act with regard to radio-television rights were introduced in 1998 in order to adapt Polish copyright for EU requirements. At this opportunity, several other changes were introduced, which were not conditioned by those requirements, and sometimes were even contradictory to them!The promoter of the amendment to the Copyright Act introduced in 1998 and 1999 was Andrzej Zakrzewski - the Minister of Culture and National Heritage at that time. It was meant to be a continuation of the changes introduced in 1994. A great number of provisions adopted in 1994 did not provide for the protection standards required by the EU laws, which was due to the necessity to make the consequences of the adaptation „softer”. An example is the amendment to radio-television rights.The drafts of of the amendments prepared in 1998 introduced cancellation of the statutory license to a reemission and replacing it by agreements concluded with organizations of collective management. Issues related to broadcasts and reemission were placed in Article 21, which resulted in the repeal of Article 23 Section 4 of the Copyright Act of 1994.Contrary to the above draft, in a report presented to the Commission of Culture and Mass Media, the repeal of Article 24 Section 3 as well as the definition of a „reemission” were decided to be crossed out. In the course of debates on the amendments, Senate voted for replacing the phrase „reemission” with the term „parallel and integral dissemination” and repealing Art. 24 Section 3.The amendment of 9 June 2000 upheld Art. 24 Section 3, which was a technical mistake resulting from internal discrepancies within the act of law introducing the amendments. The amendment of 28 October 2002 removed this provision. The proposal to repeal Art. 24 Section 3 was accompanied with a proposal to add to Article 2 1 a new section no. 4 stating, that: „in case of any discrepancies resulting from the agreement, referred to in Section 3, Article 108 Section 5 shall apply”. The reason for such an amendment was to soften the consequences of removing the statutory license with regard to a reemission in 2000.Article 108 Section 3 of the Copyright Act of 1994 in its first version, with regard to the discrepancies resulting from Remuneration Schedules approved of by the Copyright Commission consisting of 7 members, provided for a jurisdiction of the Copyright Commission consisting of 3 members. The Copyright Commission consisting of 3 members, deciding on „discrepancies resulting from the agreement on reemission”, threatens the authors’ rights. It is necessary to indicate, that an author is vested with an exclusive right to dispose of his work. In a situation where there is a statutory license, an author is only vested with a right to remuneration. In any situation, however, an organization of the collective management acts for his benefit. Extending the scope of the Copyright Commission’s jurisdiction cannot lead to limiting the authors’ rights. An extended jurisdiction of the Copyright Commission in fact creates such a limitation. Instead of negotiating a license to a reemission, including an author’s remuneration, apart from the collective management body, a cable operator may obtain a license for a reemission issued by the Copyright Commission consisting of 3 members.After the aforementioned amendment came into force, the issue of a statutory license with regard to cable television became a subject of intensive media discussion. Just a few months after the amendment was introduced, the deputies proposed to go back to the statutory license with regard to a reemission. As a result, a new amendment was adopted, which reintroduced the statutory license. The aforementioned changes, however, were made being aware of their contradiction to the EU standards. Opponents of these changes raised arguments speaking for the necessity of further amendments. Some of them are as follows. A cable operator was to have just a few days to identify television programs’ broadcasters, start negotiations, and conclude appropriate agreements. This argument took no account of the fact, that a removal of the statutory license with regard to reemission was made in 2000.As a result, the introduced amendment repeals Article 21 Section 3 and 4 of the Copyright Act of 2002 and replaced it with a new Article 211 which shall come into force on the date when Poland joins the European Union. It means, that in place of temporarily removed provisions abolishing the statutory license, it has been brought into the light again, due to the European Union obligations.The changes adopted in 2002 were appealed, however, because of being contradictory to the Polish Constitution - too short vacatio legis. Constitutional Tribunal in its decision of 16 September 2003 did not agree with this view. It means, that Constitutional Tribunal did not share the argument which justified bringing the statutory license in 2003 into the light again.

From the publication of the first two cantos of Don Juan in 1819, the poem’s legal status was in doubt. Although never found blasphemous or seditious in a criminal court, Byron’s copyright in Don Juan was not upheld by the civil courts, owing to the possibility that the poem might be ‘injurious’ to the public. Alongside these courtroom debates, Byron and his poetry came under increasingly intense scrutiny before the figurative ‘tribunal of the public’, in periodicals and newspapers. Reviewers and commentators appraised Don Juan in the vocabulary of the criminal law, assuming the roles of advocate, jury and judge. This article analyses some of these legal and quasi-legal attacks, and investigates how Byron engaged with them. Don Juan, I propose, bears traces of the legal pressures Byron faced, absorbing the threat of criminal prosecution and exploring the question of what an oppositional statement of self-defence might look like.

En la reforma parcial de la legislación de derechos de autor introducida en Colom­bia mediante la Ley 1915 de 2018 resalta la inclusión de la parodia como nueva limitación al derecho de autor. No obstante constituye una novedad en el ámbito legislativo nacional, la parodia ya tenía un fuerte arraigo en la cultura popular y mediática en el país, con alcances mucho más amplios que los que la doctrina y la jurisprudencia comparada suelen conceder a esta figura desde la perspectiva jurídica. Como se explicará en este artículo, la costumbre local concibe y acepta el uso de la parodia con un contenido que en muchos de sus ejemplos puede llegar a confrontar los usos honrados traspasando los límites del límite. En este escrito se realizará un análisis de la limitación de la parodia partiendo del texto normativo y procurando su interpretación con ayuda de la doctrina y jurisprudencia comparada de casos relevantes provenientes de los dos sistemas, el derecho de autor continental y el copyright estadounidense, con especial referencia al caso Deckmyn fallado por el Tribunal de Justicia Europeo en el año 2014.

The characterization of payments, for taxation, in the hands of, non-resident payees arising out of a cross-border sale of software, has always remained controversial in India. While the Revenue, contends that such payments are ‘Royalties’ for Licensing of, Copyrights, the taxpayers argue that these payments are merely, Proceeds on the Sales of Copyrighted Articles. There have been, several conflicting decisions by different Income Tax Tribunals, and High Courts that have legitimized each of these characterizations., While the Courts and Tribunals led by the Delhi, HC held for the taxpayers by characterizing these payments as, Proceeds of Sales, the Courts and Tribunals led by the, Karnataka HC held for the Revenue. Therefore, albeit in, different jurisdictions within the country, a dichotomy persisted. In an attempt to resolve this dichotomy, the Government, of India introduced a clarificatory amendment to the Indian, Income Tax Act, 1961 in 2012. However, the conflict persisted, as the amendment did not clarify and could not have, clarified the status of these payments under the Double, Taxation Avoidance Agreements (DTAAs) As a result, the, dichotomy, now limited to Non-Resident Payees whose resident, jurisdiction has a DTAA with India, still prevailed. These, jurisdictions include several Commonwealth nations such as the, UK, Australia, Malaysia, Canada, etc. and Ireland, which is, the most preferred jurisdiction to operate from for almost all the, tech corporations in the world. Therefore, this dichotomy still, affects the tax liability of the residents of these jurisdictions and, their ease of doing business with India. In this article, the author will highlight that the dichotomy,, though existent, has no basis in law. The author will, highlight that the characterization of these payments as has been, contended by the Revenue is the only legitimate characterization., This characterization not only draws support from the, established Rules of Statutory Interpretation but also promotes, the ease of doing business in India. Agreement, Consideration, Copyright, Double-Tax, Income Tax, Licensing, Literary, Payment, Royalty, Resident

The administrative tribunals in the New Zealand legal systemThe article describes administrative judiciary in New Zealand, as well as its significant role in the whole legal system of the country. The development of administrative tribunals in many countries may differ, as it is associated with the constantly increasing power of any state bodies. Administrative competences do gradually rise due to the complexity of New Zealand society, but also as a response to non-compliance with social justice. In New Zealand, state carries out the functions which until recently were, or in certain countries are still, in private hands. In addition, the New Zealand administrative law system includes such institutions as the Court of Copyright, the Office of Pharmacy or the College of Appeal Land.

Abstract Court of First Instance of Bologna, Commercial Chamber, Order of 20 June 2019, Case No 3973/2019, Ferrari Spa v Ares Design Modena Srl In the context of interim proceedings, the Court of First Instance (Tribunale) of Bologna found that the Ferrari GTO 250 supercar is protectable because it meets the statutory conditions of artistic and creative value for copyright to subsist in works of industrial design and, accordingly, awarded the Prancing Horse house an interlocutory injunction blocking the marketing of an imitation.

O objetivo do trabalho é expor considerações sobre a potencial violação do direito de marcas por motores de busca a partir de sistema de geração de palavras-chave por algoritmos. A introdução descreve o problema de pesquisa em termos gerais e expõe o acerto teórico utilizado para concluir que somente será possível pensar em soluções para estes conflitos jurídicos se houver a apreciação de um conceito de regulação em rede. Em síntese, é descrito o modelo de “comunitarismo de rede”, aperfeiçoado por Andrew D. Murray, a partir do qual se concluirá, com análise das disputas jurídicas no Brasil e na Europa, pela importância de estudar a novos modos de regulação cooperativa. A primeira seção do artigo descreve como a evolução tecnológica dos sistemas de navegação na Internet colocou os motores de busca em um papel central, em razão da necessidade de ordenar o grande volume de informação disponível. A segunda parte descreve as prescrições genéricas do direito internacional sobre propriedade intelectual e propriedade industrial, demonstrando a dificuldade de adaptação das normas tradicionais para o paradigma da Internet. Ainda, é indicado um dilema potencial relacionado aos algoritmos e base de dados – protegidos pelos direitos autorais – serem meios de perpetração de violações de direitos protegidos por normas de propriedade industrial. É detalhado o caso Louis Vuitton versus Google France SLC no qual o Tribunal de Justiça da União Europeia houve por considerar não haver responsabilidade do motor de busca por violação de marca. A terceira seção analisa casos brasileiros, julgados por tribunais de apelação, para concluir que o resultado dos julgados é parecido com o paradigma da União Europeia, contudo com uma inovação: a exclusão de responsabilização com base na premissa técnica de que os algoritmos utilizados inviabilizariam o exame prévio das palavras-chave. A conclusão do artigo reside na importância de buscar soluções cooperativas de regulação, em razão da complexidade técnica envolvida, sendo possível intuir a fruição dos benefícios de ação conjunto dos agentes de comércio em prol de um ambiente de negócios saudável, que deriva das tradições do direito mercantil.AbstractThe paper exposes considerations over potential trademarks infringements by the keyword generation algorithms. The introduction describes the research problem in broad terms in order to show that an effective analysis should use a networked regulation theoretical framework. It is described the model named “network communitarism”, created by Andrew D. Murray from which it will be, after assessing the judicial disputes both in Brazil and in the European Union, of the importance of study of new cooperative regulation models. The first part of the article describes how the technological evolution of Internet browsing has granted the search engines a central role to deal with the necessity to organize the enormous volume of available information. The second section describes the general norms of the international intellectual property law to indicate the complex operation to adapt them to the Internet new paradigm. Therefore it is indicated a potential legal dilemma due to the fact that algorithms and databases are protected by copyright laws and are also means to violate industrial property rights. The final ruling of the European Court of Justice in the Louis Vuitton against Google France SLC case is detailed, and it is shown that it determined the absence of trademark infringement in the conduct of the search engine. The third section assesses some Brazilian appellate rulings and concludes that the panorama there is similar to the European case. Notwithstanding, the Brazilian courts utilize an additional argument: the technical premise that the algorithm system is unable to make a previous exam of the keywords contents – and potential violation. The conclusion of the article focuses on the importance to debate and find new cooperative regulatory solutions, as something possible to infer from both the technological complexity of the problem and the own enterprises need of a good business environment.KeywordsInternet – Industrial Property – Trademark Law – Rulings – European Court of Justice – Comparison.ResuméeL'objectif de l´article est de présenter des considérations au sujet de la violation potentielle du droit des marques par les moteurs de recherche à partir de mots-clés générés par des systèmes techniques et des algorithmes. L'introduction décrit le problème de la recherche en general, et, ensuite, elle décrit le cadre théorique utilisé pour conclure qu´il n´est pas possible de trouver une solution à ces conflits juridiques sans l'examen du concept de régulation en réseau. En bref, elle décrit le modèle de «communautarisme en réseau», mis au point par Andrew D. Murray, à partir duquel se fera l'analyse des litiges en Europe et au Brésil. Au fin, se concluira par l'importance d'étudier des nouveaux moyens de régulation coopérative. La première partie de l'article décrit comment l'évolution technologique des systèmes de navigation de la Toile a mis les moteurs de recherche dans un rôle central, en raison de la nécessité d´organiser un grand volume d'informations disponibles. La deuxième partie décrit les dispositions générales du droit international sur la propriété intellectuelle et la propriété industrielle, ce qui démontre la difficulté d'adapter les normes traditionnelles au paradigme de l'Internet. Pourtant, un dilemme potentiel lié à des algorithmes et à la base de données est qu´ils sont protégés par le droit d'auteur mais également ils sont um moyen de commettre des violations d´autres droits protégés par les règles de la propriété industrielle, comme le droit de marque. La section détaille de cas Louis Vuitton vs Google France dans la Cour de Justice de l'Union européenne qui n´engagait pas la responsabilité du moteur de recherche em ce qui concerne la violation de marque. La troisième section analyse les cas brésiliens de certaines cours d'appel dont l'issue des procès est similaire au paradigme de l'UE, mais avec une innovation: l'imputabilité de l'exclusion fondée sur l'hypothèse technique que les algorithmes utilisés rendraint impossible l´examen préalable des mots clés. La conclusion de l'article traite de l'importance de l´étude de solutions juridiques dans le paradigme de la régulation coopérative, en raison de la complexité technique en cause, et elle indique la possibilite de profiter de l´interêt de tous les agents commerciaux d´avoir un environnement d'affaires sain issu des traditions de droit commerciaux.Mots-cléInternet – Proprieté Industrielle – Droit de Marque – Arrêts – Cour de Justice de l´Union Européenne – Comparasion.

In March 2009, Swiss Parliament passed a new law establishing a Federal Patent Court. This new Court is expected to start operating in 2011, simultaneously with the coming into effect of the new unified Swiss Civil Procedure Law. The Federal Patent Court will serve as the court of first instance in patent matters (infringement and validity claims) for the whole territory of Switzerland thereby replacing to an essential extent the Cantonal courts which were so far competent in patent matters. Surprisingly, the Swiss legislator has not specifically addressed the Federal Patent Court’s jurisdiction in relation to arbitral tribunals sitting in Switzerland. However, the new law speaks of the Court’s “exclusive jurisdiction” in patent matters. The issue therefore arises as to whether, in the future, patent claims could still be decided by arbitral tribunals seated in Switzerland. Switzerland has always been considered as being one of the most liberal countries in the world with regard to the arbitrability of intellectual property claims. Already in 1975, the Swiss Office for Intellectual Property confirmed this approach in a published legal opinion referring to domestic arbitration. This opinion is still valid and can also be extended to international arbitration. What matters is whether an intellectual property claim can be subject to arbitration in accordance with Art. 177 para. 1 of the Private International Law Act (PIL) (i.e. any claim presenting a financial interest). This is usually the case, with some exceptions such as copyright matters relating to moral rights. Accordingly, in the author’s view, the terms “exclusive jurisdiction” used in the new law, only refer to the position of the Federal Patent Court within the (state) judicial system. Absent any specific statement in the new law or related materials, these terms do not refer to the new Court’s jurisdiction in relation and compared to arbitration. A different interpretation would in addition lead to the strange result that patent disputes would fall under a different jurisdiction than trademark and design disputes. Hence, the position remains in Switzerland that all aspects of intellectual property rights, including patents, continue to be arbitrable to the extent that the claims fall under the ambit of Article 177 PIL.

Nella sentenza di seguito commentata, la Corte d'Appello di Milano, in merito alla decisione di Ryanair di escludere qualsiasi intermediazione commerciale nella vendita dei propri biglietti aerei, si è pronunciata nella vertenza tra la compagnia aerea irlandese e l'agenzia di viaggi italiana Viaggiare che, in primo grado, ha denunciato il comportamento di Ryanair in quanto avrebbe ostacolato con il proprio comportamento l'agenzia di viaggio nella vendita dei biglietti aerei di Ryanair direttamente ai consumatori, costringendo l'agenzia stessa a riutilizzare i dati forniti dal database di Ryanair al fine di vendere indirettamente i biglietti sul suo sito web. La Corte (in parziale riforma della sentenza del Tribunale di primo grado) ha ritenuto che la decisione della compagnia aerea di riservarsi la vendita di biglietti aerei non costituisse un abuso di posizione dominante come previsto dall'articolo 102 del Trattato sul Funzionamento dell'Unione Europea, in quanto Ryanair deteneva nel mercato dei voli europei solo il 10%, quota questa molto bassa, che varrebbe a escludere una posizione dominante della compagnia su detto mercato. Nell'ottica della normativa antitrust, è stata accolta la mozione di Ryanair volta ad escludere una posizione dominante sul mercato dei voli europei, mentre nell'ottica dei diritti di proprietà intellettuale la domanda di Ryanair è stata respinta. A questo proposito, la Corte non ha accolto la mozione di Ryanair in base alla quale l'uso dei suoi marchi da parte di Viaggiare violasse i diritti privativi di Ryanair; la Corte ha inoltre stabilito che il database di Ryanair non potesse essere considerato di proprietà di quest'ultima, in quanto lo stesso, essendo del tutto svincolato da specifiche tecniche e funzionali che ne dettano la scelta e l'organizzazione dei dati, non può essere considerato alla stregua di una manifestazione creativa e, quindi, proprietà intellettuale ai sensi dell'art. 2, 64-quinques e 64-sexies della Legge sul Copyright. La Corte ha quindi ritenuto che non vi fosse nemmeno protezione ai sensi della cosiddetta dottrina "sui generis" del database Rynair poiché la protezione di tale database era finalizzata ad escludere la commercializzazione dei biglietti aerei e non a proteggere gli sforzi di investimento di Ryanair. La condotta di Viagiare di "screen scraping" dei dati Ryanair relativi all'offerta di biglietti aerei è stata considerata legittima in quanto Ryanair - nei Termini di Utilizzo del suo sito web - ha fornito l'accesso (concessione di licenza) a terzi dei suoi dati

From 1990s, a rising number of international and hybrid criminal tribunals and since 2002, the International Criminal Court have conducted various investigations on international crimes including crime against humanity, genocide and war crimes in various countries worldwide. These judicial organs have repeatedly relied upon witness’s testimonies, information and assistance from a wide variety of sources including governments, journalists, peacekeepers, human rights researchers and intelligence specialists and few forensic scientists, wherein some of these information and reports were driven by politics. Even though such information were very benefitting “there have also been many mishaps, misunderstandings in terms of differentiating information and evidence and missed opportunities in view of finding out the truth in way that information that could potentially have been of great use to criminal cases was lost or was collected or preserved in a manner that made it unusable at trial.” In today’s era, where there is a remarkable technological development in forensic science, it is time to use forensic methods in investigation of international crimes since a number of scientific and technological advances have improved the ability to document large-scale crimes with efficiency and precision. Yet, only in recent years have international criminal courts and other fact-finding institutions begun to embrace these innovations. There is a need of forensic science in investigating and prosecuting offenders of atrocities than traditional use of testimonies which are not easy to be relied on but still some legal and administrative issues still hinder the successful use of forensic evidences in investigating and prosecuting in international criminal proceedings. The present research focused on the practical use of forensic evidences like; pathology and DNA in exhumation of mass grave for determination of cause, manner and mechanism of death but to locate, excavate and exhume mass graves to produce forensic evidences of atrocities and to returning victims to loved ones and also discussed as tools for justice, humanitarian and documentation.The research also revealed the problems which are not only limited to the legal challenges of insufficiency of forensic evidence admissibility regulations and their maintenance of chain of custody, but also there are administrative issues like, lack of fund to be used during forensic investigation activities including, crime scene examination, collection of evidence and laboratory International Journal of Forensic Sciences 2 Thierry MB and Fred K. The Use of Forensic Evidences in Investigations and Prosecution in International Criminal Proceedings. Case Study of International Criminal Court (ICC). Int J Forens Sci 2024, 9(2): 000380. Copyright© Thierry MB and Fred K. examination of forensic evidence and all these can lead to unnecessary complications and prolongation criminal proceedings in international criminal court hence breach of fair trial principle. Finally, the research proposed reforms by establishing specific regulations related to the admissibility of forensic evidences in international criminal proceedings and chain of custody of forensic evidences as well as harmonizing the standard operating procedure of forensic investigation to regulate scientific investigation activities including, Crime Scene Management, Evidence Collection, Examination of forensic evidences and forensic expert report writing in investigation and prosecution of international criminal proceeding and also detailed mandate to solve administrative issues.

Abstract Directive (EU) 2014/26 liberalised the market for collective management of copyright and related rights in Europe. In doing so it distinguished collecting societies into two categories. ‘Collective Management Organisations’ (CMOs) are entities that are either controlled (or owned) by rightholders or organised on a ‘non-profit’ basis. Conversely, ‘Independent Management Entities’ (IMEs) operate ‘for profit’ and are not controlled by rightholders. Prior to the adoption of this Directive, Italian law entrusted SIAE (Italian Society of Authors and Publishers) with a legal monopoly for the collective management of copyright. In 2017 a reform put an end to this system by opening the market to new entrants. However, according to the new rules, an entity can only manage copyright in Italy if it qualifies as a CMO. IMEs are therefore still not allowed to manage copyright in the Italian market. Such a restriction has raised a lively debate in Italy and its compatibility with EU law has recently been the object of a request for a preliminary ruling of the CJEU by the Tribunal of Rome. This work deals with the question of whether the choice of preventing IMEs from entering the Italian market is compatible with the principles of Directive 2014/26 and with general principles of EU law on the Internal Market.

Desde sentencias tan conocidas como son las del caso “Zeilin vs Baidu” o la de Shenzhen y el caso Dreamwriter, sendas en 2019, donde ambas amparadas en el derecho de autor chino, la primera niega con rotundidad que una IA pueda ser autor y la segunda, en cambio, reconoce el copyright de una obra creada por IA. Así, el caso Dabus y su reconocimiento por la Oficina de patentes de Sudáfrica o la sentencia del Tribunal Federal de Australia (y el voto particular en la apelación en Reino Unido de septiembre de 2021 por Lord Birss). O el caso RAGHAV en la India, donde se reconoció la coautoría de una inteligencia artificial. ¿Y en el derecho español, qué puede suceder?, ¿cabría la opción de ser reconocida la autoría de una inteligencia artificial por sus obras dentro de la Propiedad Intelectual del país ibérico? El presente trabajo analiza las posibilidades de la autoría de la inteligencia artificial dentro del derecho español, y la propuesta particular de una persona ciberhumanoide dentro del elenco de alternativas.

Este artículo presenta un exhaustivo análisis del proceso judicial relativo al film Letty Lynton (1932), que, pese a ser un emblema del periodo clásico de Hollywood, fue prohibido en 1936, tras la denuncia de dos dramaturgos que acusaron a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer de haber plagiado una de sus obras. El pleito evidenció una complejidad en materia de infracción del copyright que la justicia estadounidense no había afrontado hasta el momento, entre otros motivos porque la cinta partía de unos hechos reales acontecidos durante el siglo XIX y la productora había adquirido los derechos de una novela que también los relataba. Los continuos recursos y resoluciones judiciales finalizaron, tras ochos años, con el pronunciamiento del Tribunal Supremo. Esta investigación analiza con detalle el examen del caso a través del estudio de tres fuentes: los materiales literarios relacionados con el film, los pronunciamientos judiciales que generó la demanda por plagio y la cobertura periodística llevada a cabo por cuatro importantes publicaciones cinematográficas especializadas. Los resultados permiten trazar una cronología del proceso, evaluar su resonancia mediática e identificar el impacto que tuvo tanto en el ámbito de la justicia como en el de la industria de Hollywood.

AbstractTerms of service (ToS) for social networking sites (SNS) like Instagram, Meta, X, and so on, is a clickwrap agreement that establishes a legal relationship between platform owners and users, yet probably it is the most overlooked legal agreement. The users of these sites often overlook the ToS while registering themselves on these sites and even if users (especially those with no legal background) are attempting to read them, it is difficult for them to understand because of the legal jargon. As a result, they end up signing away legal rights about which they are unaware. According to these sites' ToS, though the ownership of the user‐generated content is bestowed upon the user but the users grant to these sites “a non‐exclusive, royalty‐free, transferrable, sub‐licensable, worldwide license” and this license can be used “to host, use, distribute, modify, run, copy, publicly perform or display, translate and create derivative works of user's content.” These sites even bestow on themselves the right to modify the content which poses challenges to the right‐holders' moral rights. The fact that these platforms can sublicense the user's work creates complexities when a user intends to grant an exclusive license of his work. There is no clarity on the language of the terms like the manner of exploiting the user's content, what happens if the sublicensing is for a wrongful purpose? The problem magnifies as there is neither explicit indication about the duration of the license nor about the territorial extent. This would suggest that these sites can get a perpetual license on the content of the users. These SNS have consumers spread worldwide but in their ToS, they have forum selection clauses that list out the courts and districts in California. This means users will be discouraged to bring a copyright suit due to the lack of an option to file a claim in their home country. The US case Agence France Presse (AFP) v. Morel helps us conclude twofold mainly there is a hope that SNS will not take ToS to shield themselves from further use of the user's work and strengthen the idea that these platforms may choose to license to their partners. Further, in 2018, the Paris Tribunal declared most clauses of Twitter “null and void” due to the nature of the license and also, because it was not in compliance with French Intellectual Property Code. This gives a faint hope for a positive shift in the legal treatment of user‐generated content. Though these sites claim to retain the sublicensing right to run their sites smoothly but the licensing is very broad and carries the possibility of many usages of the content that too without paying compensation to the user. Therefore, this paper aims to highlight and give insight into the unfair licensing terms of the most often used social networking sites and its implications.

Cute pictures of animals feature as an inoffensive and adorable background to the contemporary online experience with cute content regularly shared on social media platforms. Indeed the demand for cuteness is so strong in the current cultural milieu that some animals become recognisable animal celebrities in the process (Hepola). However, despite the existence of this professionalisation in some sections of the cute economy, amateurs produce the majority of cute content that circulates online. This is largely because one of the central contributors to this steady stream of cute animal pictures is the subforum Aww, hosted on the online community Reddit. Aww is wholly dedicated to pictures of cute things and allows users to directly submit cute content directly to the site. Aww is one of the default subforums that new Reddit users are automatically subscribed to and is immensely popular, featuring over 4.2 million dedicated subscribers as well as untold casual visits. The section is self-described as: “Things that make you go AWW! -- like puppies, and bunnies, and so on...Feel free to post pictures, videos and stories of cute things” ("The cutest things on the internet!"). Users upload cute animal photos that they have taken and wait for the Reddit community to vote on their favourite pictures. The voting mechanism helps users to acknowledge their favourite posts, with the most popular featured on the front page of Aww (for a detailed critique of this process see van der Nagel 2013). The user-generated model of the site means that instead of visitors being confronted with a formally curated selection of cute animal photos, Aww offers a constantly changing mixture of amateur, semi-pro and professional content. Aww - and Reddit more generally - stand as an emblematic example of participatory culture (Jenkins 2006), with users playing an active role in the production and curation of online content. However, given the commercial nature of many user-generated content sites, this amateur media activity is becoming increasingly subject to intellectual property claims and conflicts (see Burgess; Kennedy). Across the internet there are growing tensions between website operators and amateur producers. As Jenny Kennedy (132) notes, while these platforms promote a public rhetoric of “sharing”, these corporate narratives “downplay their economic power” and imply “that they do not control the practices contained within their sites”. Subsequently, the expectations of users regarding how content is managed and organised can differ substantially from the corporate goals of social media companies. This paper contributes to the growing body of literature interested in the politics of amateur media production (see Hunter and Lastowka; Benkler; Burgess; Kennedy) by exploring the emergence of attribution norms and informal enforcement measures in and around the Aww online community. In contrast to professional content creators, amateurs often have fewer resources on hand to protect their copyrighted work and are also challenged by a pervasive online rhetoric that suggests that popular content essentially “belongs to the Internet” (Douglas). A number of communities on Reddit have questioned the company’s handling of amateur content with users suggesting that Reddit actively seeks to de-contextualise original content and not attribute original creators. By examining how amateur creators and online communities regulate content online, I interrogate the power relations that exist between social media platforms and users and explore how the corporate rhetoric of participatory culture interacts with the legal framework of copyright law. This article also contributes to existing legal scholarship on communities of practice and norms-based intellectual property systems. This literature has explored how social norms effectively regulate the protection of, among other things, recipes (Fauchart and Von Hippel), fashion design (Raustiala and Sprigman) and stand-up comedy routines (Oliar and Sprigman), in situations where copyright law does not function as an effective regulatory mechanism. Often these norms are in line with copyright law protections, but in other cases they diverge from these legal principles. In this paper I suggest that particular sections of Reddit function in a similar way, with their own set of self-governing norms, and that these norms largely align with the philosophical aims of copyright law. The paper begins by outlining a series of recent debates that have occurred between amateur media creators and Reddit, before exploring how norms are regulated on Reddit subforums Aww and Karma Court. I then offer some brief conclusions on the value of paying attention to how social norms structure forms of “sharing” (see Kennedy) and provide a useful way for amateur media producers to protect their content without going through formal legal processes. Introducing Reddit and the Confused Politics of Amateur Content Reddit is a social news site, a vibrant community and one of the most popular websites online. It stands as the most visible iteration of a long-standing tradition of user-generated and managed news, one that goes back to websites like Slashdot, which operated in the mid to late-90s. Founded in 2005 Reddit was launched after only one funding round of venture capital, receiving $100k in seed funding from Y Combinatory (Miller). Despite some early rivalry between Reddit and competitor site Digg, Reddit had enough potential to be purchased by Condé Nast for an estimated $20 million (Carr). Reddit’s audience numbers have grown exponentially in the last few years, with the site currently receiving over 5 billion page views and 114 million unique visitors per month (“About Reddit”). It has also changed focus significantly in the last few years with the site now “as much about posting interesting or funny pictures as it is about news” (Sepponen). Reddit hosts a number of individual subforums (called subreddits), which focus on a particular topic and function essentially like online bulletin boards. The front-page of Reddit showcases the most popular content from across the whole website, and user-generated content features heavily here. Amateur media cannot spread without the structural support of social media platforms, but this support is qualified in particular ways. Reddit stands as a paradigmatic case. Users on Reddit are “incentivized to submit direct links to images, because viewers can get to them more easily” (Douglas) and the website encourages amateur creators to use a preferred content server – Imgur – to host images. The Imgur service provides a direct public link to an image – even bypassing the Reddit discussion page – and with its free hosting and limited ads it has become a popular service and is used by most Reddit users (Slater-Robins). For the majority of Reddit users this is an unproblematic partnership. Imgur is free, effective and fast. However, a vocal minority of Reddit users and amateur creators claim that the partnership between Reddit and Imgur has created the equivalent of an online ghetto (Douglas).As Nick Douglas explains, when using services like Imgur there is no requirement to either provide an external link to a creators website or to attribute the creator, limiting the ability for an amateur creator to gain exposure. It also bypasses existing revenue streams that may have been set up by creators, including ad-supported websites or online stores offering merchandise. As a result creators have little opportunity to benefit either economically or reputationally from this system. This occurs to such an extent that “there are actually warnings against submitting your own [original] work” to particular subforums on Reddit (Douglas). For example, some forum moderators require submissions to either “link directly to a specific image file or to a website with minimal ads” (“Reddit Pics”). It is in this context, that the posting of original content without attribution is not actively policed. There are a number of complaints circulating within the Reddit community about these practices (see “Ok, look people. I know you heart Imgur, but webcomics? Just link to the freaking site”; “The problem with reddit”). Many creators have directly protested against this aspect of Reddit’s structural organisation. Blogger Benjamin Grelle (a.k.a The Frogman) and writer Chris Menning are two notable examples. Grelle’s protest was witty and dramatic. He wrote a blog post featuring a picture of an email he sent to Imgur offering the company a choice: send him a huge novelty check for $10,000 or alternatively, add a proper attribution system that allows artists, photographers and content creators to properly credit their work. Grelle estimates that his work generated around $20,000 in ad revenue for Imgur; however the structure of Reddit and Imgur meant he earned little income from the “viral” success of his content. Grelle claimed he was happy for his work to be shared, but attribution meant that it was more likely a fan would follow the link to his website and provide him with some financial recompense for his work. Unsurprisingly, Grelle didn’t receive a paycheck and so in response has developed a unique way to gain exposure. He has started to insert himself into his work, “[s]o when you see a stolen Frogman piece, you still see Ben Grelle’s face” (Douglas). Chris Menning posted a blog about being banned from Reddit, hoping to bring to light some of the inequalities that persist around Reddit’s current structure. He began by noting that he had received a significant amount of traffic from them in the past. He had responded in kind by looking to create original content for particular subforums, knowing what a particular community would enjoy. However, his habit of providing the link to his own website along with the content he posted saw him get labelled as a spammer and banned by administrators. Menning chose not to fight the ban:It seems that the only way I could avoid [getting banned] is if I were to relinquish any rights to my original content and post it exclusively to Imgur. In effect, reddit punishes the creation of original content, and rewards content theft (Menning). Instead he decided to quit Reddit, claiming that Reddit’s approach would carry long-term consequences as the platform provided little incentive for creators to produce wholly original content. It is worth noting that neither Menning nor Grelle turned to legal avenues in order to gain financial restitution. Considering the nature of the practices they were complaining about, compensation in the form of an injunction or damages would have certainly been possible. In Benjamin’s case, a user had combined a number of his copyrighted works into one image and posted the image to Imgur without attribution --this infringed Grelle’s copyright in his work as well as his moral right to be attributed as the creator of the work. However, the public comments of both creators suggest that despite the possibility of legal success, their issue was not so much to do with their individual cases but rather the broader structural issues at play within Reddit. While they might gain individually from a successful legal challenge, over the long term Reddit would continue to be a fraught place for amateur and semi-professional content creators. Certain parts of the Reddit community appear to be sympathetic to these issues, and the complaints of dissenting users like Menning and Grelle have received active support from some users and moderators on the site. This has led to changes in the way content is being posted and managed on Aww, and has also driven the emergence of a satirical user-run court entitled Karma Court. In these spaces moderators and members establish community norms, regularly police the correct attribution of works and challenge the de-contextualisation of content overtly encouraged by Reddit, Imgur and other subforums. In the following section I will examine both Aww and Karma Court in order to explore how these norms are established and negotiated by both moderators and users alike. reddit.com/r/aww: The Online Hub of Cute Animal Pictures As we have seen, the design of Reddit and Imgur creates a number of problems for amateur creators who wish to protect their intellectual property. To address these shortcomings, the Aww community has created its own informal regulatory systems. Volunteer moderators play a crucial role: they establish informal codes of conduct for the Aww community and enforce various rules about how the site should be used. One of these rules relates to attribution. Users are asked to to “post original content whenever possible or attribute original content creators” ("The cutest things on the internet!"). Due to the volunteer nature of the work and the size of the Aww sub-reddit, moderator enforcement is haphazard. Consequently, responsibility falls on the wider user community to self-police. Despite its informal nature, this process manages to facilitate a fairly consistent standard of attribution. In this way it functions as an informal method of intellectual property protection. It is worth noting however that this commitment to original content is not solely due to the moral character of Aww users. A significant motivation is the distribution of karma points amongst Reddit users. Karma, which represents your good standing within the Reddit community, can be earned through user likes and votes – these push the most popular content to the front page of each subforum. Thus karma stands as a numerical representation of a user’s value to Reddit. This ostensibly democratic system has the paradoxical effect of fuelling intellectual property violations on the site. Users often repost other users’ jpegs, animated gifs, and other content, in order to reap the social and cultural capital that comes with posting a popular picture. In some cases they claim authorship of the content; in other cases they simply re-post content that they feel “belongs to the internet” (Douglas). Some content is so popular or pervasive online (this content that is often described as “viral”) that users feel there is little reason or need to attribute content. This helps to explain the persistence of ownership and attribution conflicts on Reddit. In the eyes of some users and moderators the management of these rights and the correct distribution of karma are seen to be vital to the long-term functioning of site. The karma system offers a numerical representation of each contributor’s value. Re-posting already successful content and claiming it as your own challenges the proper functioning of the karma system and potentially ‘inhibits the innovative potential of contributions (Richterich). On Aww the re-posting of original content is viewed as a taboo act that breaches these norms. The poster is seen to have engaged in deceptive conduct in order to gain karma for their user profile. In addition there is a strong ethic that runs through these comment threads that the original creator deserves attribution. There is a presumption that this attribution is vital in order to increasing the possible marketability of the posted content and to recognise and courage creators within the community. This sort of community-driven regulation contrasts with the aforementioned site design of Reddit and Imgur, which frustrates effective authorship attribution practices. Aww users, in contrast, have shown a willingness to defend what they see as the intellectual property rights of content creators.A series of recent examples outline how this process works in practice. User “moonlikeme123” posted a picture of a cat with its hands on the steering wheel of a car. The picture was entitled “we don’t need to ask for directions, Helen”. During the same day, three separate users had identified the picture as a repost, with one noting that the same picture was already on the front page of Aww. “moonlikeme123” received no karma points for the picture. In a second example, the user “nibblur” posted a photo of a kitten “hunting” a toy mouse. Within a day, one enterprising user had identified the original photographer – “torode”, an amateur photographer – and linked to his Reddit profile (see fig. 2) ("ferocious cat hunting its prey: aww."). One further example: on 15 July 2013 “Cuzacelmare” posted a picture of two dogs comforting each other – an image which had originally been posted by “lauface”. Again, users were quick to point out the lack of attribution and the attempt to claim someone else’s content as their own (“Comforting her sister during a storm: aww). It is worth noting that some Reddit users consider attributing content to be entirely without benefit. Some deride karma as “meaningless” and suggest that as a significant amount of content online is regularly reposted elsewhere, there is little harm done in re-posting what is essentially amateur content destined to be lost in the bowels of the internet. For example, the comments that follow Cuzacelmare’s reflect an ambivalence about reposting, suggesting that users weigh up the benefits of exposure gained by the re-posting against the lack of attribution granted and the increasingly decontextualized nature of the photo itself:Why does everyone get so bitchy about reposts. Not everyone is on ALL the time or has been on Rreddit since it was created. I mean if you've seen it already ignore it. It's just picture you aren't forced to click the link. [sic] (“Comforting her sister during a storm: aww”)We're arguing semantics, but any content that gets attention can benefit the creator, whether it's reddit or Youtube (“Comforting her sister during a storm: aww”) Such discussions are common on comment threads following re-posts by other users. They underline the conflicted status of this ephemeral media and the underlying frictions that are part of these processes. These discussions underline the fact that on Reddit the “sharing” (Kennedy) and “spreading” (Jenkins et al.) of content is not seen as an unquestioned positive but rather as a contestable structural feature that needs to be constantly negotiated and discussed. These informal methods of identification, post-hoc attribution and criticism in comment threads have been the long-standing method used to redress questions of attribution and ownership of content on Reddit. However in recent times, Reddit users have turned to satirical methods of formal adjudication for particularly egregious cases. A sub-reddit, Karma Court, now functions as an informal tribunal in which punishment is meted out for “the abuse of karma and general contemptible actions heretofore identified as wrongdoing” (“Constitution and F.A.Q of the Karma Court”). Due to its double function as both an adjudicator and satire of users overly-invested in online debates, there is no limit to the possible “crimes” a user may be charged with. The following charges are only presented as guidelines and speak to common negative experiences on online: (1). Douchebaggery - When one is being a douche.(2). Defamation - Tarnishing another redditor's [user’s] username.(3). Public Indecency - When a user flexes his or her 'e-peen' with the intent to shame other users.(4). OhShit.exe - Intentional reposting that results in reddit Gold.(5). GrandTheft.jpg - Reposting while claiming credit for the post.(6). Obstruction of Justice - Impeding or interfering with an investigation, such as submitting false screenshots, deleting evidence, or providing false evidence to the court.(7). Other - Literally anything else you want. We like creative names for charges.(“Constitution and F.A.Q of the Karma Court”) In Karma Court, legal representation can be sourced from a list of attorneys and judges, populated by users who volunteer to help adjudicate the case. They are required to have been a Reddit member for over six months. The only punishment is a public shaming. Interestingly Karma Court has developed a fair reposting clause that attempts to manage the complex debates around reposting and attribution. Under the non-binding satirical clause, users are able to repost content if it has not featured on the front page of a sub-reddit for seven or more days, if the re-poster acknowledges in the title or description that they are re-posting or if the original poster has less than 30,000 link karma (which means that the original poster has not substantially contributed to the Reddit community). If a re-poster does not adhere by these rules and claims a re-post as their own original content (or “OC”), they can be charged with “grandtheft.jpg” and brought to trial by another Reddit user. As one of the most popular subforums, a number of cases have emerged from Aww. The aforementioned re-poster “Cuzacelmare” (“I am bringing /U/ Cuzacelmare to trial …”) was “charged” through this process and served with a summons after denying “cute and innocent animals of that subreddit of their much deserved karma”. Similar cases to do with re-posting without attribution on Aww involve “FreshCorio” (“Reddit vs. U/FreshCorio …”) and “ninjacollin” (“People of Reddit vs. /U/ ninjacollin”) who were also brought to karma court. In each case prosecutors were adamant that false authorship claims needed to be punished. With these mock trials run by volunteers it takes time for arguments to be heard and judgment to occur; however “ninjacollin” expedited the legal process by offering a full confession. As a new user, “ninjacollin” was reprimanded severely for his actions and the users on Karma Court underlined the consequences of not identifying original content creators when re-posting content. Ownership and Attribution: Amateur Media, Distribution and Law The practices outlined above offer a number of alternate ways to think about amateur media and how it is distributed. An increasingly complex picture of content attribution and circulation emerges once we take into account the structural operation of Reddit, the intellectual property norms of users, and the various formal and informal systems of regulation that are appearing on the site. Such practices require users to negotiate complex questions of ownership between each other and in relation to corporate bodies. These negotiations often lead to informal agreements around a set of norms to regulate the spread of content within a particular community, suggesting that the lack of a formal legal process in these debates does not mean that there is an absence of regulation. As noted throughout this paper, the spread of online content often involves progressive de-contextualisation. Website design features often support this process in the hopes of encouraging content to spread in a fashion amenable to their corporate goals. Considering this tendency for content to be decontextualized online, the presence of attribution norms on subforums like Aww is significant. Instead of remixing, spreading and re-purposing content indiscriminately, users retain a concept of ownership and attribution that tracks closely to the basic principles of copyright law. Rather than users radically redefining concepts of attribution and ownership, as prefigured in some of the more utopian accounts of participatory media, the dominant norms of the Reddit community extend a discourse of copyright and ownership. As well as providing a greater level of detail to contemporary debates around amateur media and its viral or spreadable nature (Burgess; Jenkins; Jenkins et al), this analysis offers some lessons for copyright law. The emergence of norms in particular Reddit subforums which govern the use of copyrighted content and the use of a mock court structure suggests that online communities have the capacity to engage in forms of redress for amateur creators. These organic forms of copyright management operate adjacent to formal legal structures of copyright law. However, they are more accessible and practical for amateur creators, who do not always have the money to hire lawyers, especially when the market value of their content might be negligible. The informal regulatory systems outlined above may not operate perfectly but they reveal communities who are willing to engage foundational conversations around the importance of attribution and ownership. Following the existing literature (Fauchart and Von Hippel; Raustiala and Sprigman; Schultz; Oliar and Sprigman), I suggest that these online social norms provide a useful form of alternative protection for amateur creators. Acknowledgements Thanks to Ramon Lobato and Emily van der Nagel for comments and productive discussions around these issues. I am also grateful to the two anonymous peer reviewers for their assistance in developing this argument. References “About Reddit.” Reddit, 2014. 29 Apr. 2014 ‹http://www.reddit.com/about/›. Benkler, Yochai. The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006. 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