The bounds of traditional copyright are being stretched and broken by technological change. The ease of digital copying, combined with new forms of creativity and production, including 3D printing, is transforming the copyright landscape at an accelerated pace.
Creators, companies, and governments need to think clearly about which goal or goals of copyright is the most important to them, and move towards a system that supports those goals. Speaking in the broadest terms, copyright establishes the right of an author or creator to control and benefit from his or her artistic endeavor. Yet what is society trying to achieve by granting such a right?
There is no better time to consider this fundamental question. The European Commission, under President Jean-Claude Juncker, has put a high priority on creating a Digital Single Market, which among other things would replace national copyright systems with a single EU system. Meanwhile, over the next several months, the European Parliament will be considering a draft report that offers up its own version of an EU-wide copyright system.
Simultaneously, American and European T-TIP negotiators are talking about how to harmonize intellectual property protection across the Atlantic, which could affect copyright as well. And national governments in Germany and Spain extended their copyright systems in recent years for the explicit—and ultimately unsuccessful—purpose of charging Google News and other sites a fee for running snippets of stories from national newspapers.
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