Swedish Joint Committee for Literary and
Artistic Professionals presents
World conference on culture
World
Conference on Culture
| Programme
Conference Papers
The impact of new technologies in the cultural
field
and the protection of authors's rights
Dr. Luíz Francisco Rebello
| Luíz Francisco Rebello, President and General Manager of SPA (Sociedade Portuguesa de Autores) and Professor at the Law University of Coimbra and the International University of Lisbon. |
I live in a small country, even if it is a part of the European Community. But if we believe that the world has become, today, a global village, crossed by the highways of information, to speak of "small countries" makes no more sense - or, at least, has not the same sense than a couple of years ago. And if we consider that the universe of Culture, in which litterary and artistic works and products circulate freely, not respecting the established frontiers, you will agree that expressions like "small countries" make even less sense. What is more, the new technologies, specially digital technology, allow such circulation at a level unknown till now. In the cybernetic environment, anyone in any place and at any time can have access to any intellectual work.
No doubt this is a revolution that can only be compared to the invention, five centuries ago, of the press. Till then, the access to litterary and artistic works was highly limitated, for social, economic and technical reasons. The discovery of Guttenberg, introducing the possibility to make a great number of copies of a work and to disseminate them, led to the need of establishing a legal regulation of the relations between the author, the editor and the user. At the beginning, the adopted system left the author outside of it: a privilege to distribute and sell the copies of his works was granted exclusively to the editors and the booksellers (the "stationers" as they were called at the time). But this was a rather unfair solution, since at the origin of any litterary or artistic work there is an author. The statute of Queen Anne of England, ten years after the beginning of the 18th century, was the first step to put the author in the place he deserved. By the end of the century, France set forth two laws on performance and reproduction of intellectual works. Both models - the so-called copyright system and the continental system - coexist since then, but in spite of some differences, they have in common the recognization of the author as the root of all creation.
Now, technological evolution has forced us to look at the system in force from a new point of view: the technical one. And this is why, we the authors and those who are entitled to represent and protect our rights, are deeply concerned with the issues of the problems arised from such technologies in the digital environment.
We are aware that, as a consequence of digitalization, the reproduction of works, either protected or not, has become easier, to the point of eliminate the boundaries with their original. On the other side, digitalization gave a new dimension to the possibility of disseminate works and products, even without the need of a material support. Transmission on-line makes a work available to anyone who will be linked to the electronical net, and allows him to use it by all processes known, for his exclusive and private aims but also for commercial or industrial purposes. Even more, he can modify the work, he can combine it with other works, or create a new work from the original.
And what about the author, in the middle of this? How are his rights respected? And by whom? Can he resist the strong attempts of industry to change copyright into an investment, and take his place? Does the actual legislation, either national or international, give a convenient - and reasonable - answer to these questions? And to prevent this threaten?
Some people, like Nicholas Negroponte, head of the Media Lab of the Massachussetts Institute of Technology, think that the copyright system, as we know it actually, has come to an end. Others, on the contrary, are in favour of adapting the system to the new context originated by the new digital technologies. And it is in that direction that WIPO has recently adopted a Treaty in which the numeric transmission on-line of works is submitted to the treatment established by the Berne Convention as far as communication right is concerned, and a right of distribution and lending is introduced for the first time.
These are, in my opinion, positive steps wich allow a certain degree, even if it is a low one, of trust in the further evolution of the legal protection of artistic and litterary works. Our future as creators, but also the future of civilization depend on such evolution.
Dr. Luíz Francisco Rebello