new media and law confrence- amman, jordan

8/14/2019 New Media and Law Confrence- Amman, Jordan

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Copyright and Bloggers - A JordanianPerspective

Rami Olwan

LLM Columbia University, New York, U.S

Research Fellow, ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative

Industries and Innovation

A Presentation to the New Media and Law

Conference, Amman, Jordan


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Outline

What are blogs and why they are important?

What are the major legal risks in blogging?

How does Jordanian Copyright Law protect blogs?

Practical tips to protect Jordanian bloggers from copyrightliability.

Does Jordanian Copyright Law encourage user- generatedactivities?

What are the main problems with the current state ofcopyright law in Jordan?

What does the future look like?
http://www.qut.edu.au/


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What are Blogs?

- A blog (short for web-log) is a user-generated website that facilitate

interaction by allowing readers to post comments.

- They can be used for multitude of reasons, including: News; Political, literary and artistic commentary; Discussion of economic issues; Discussion of technological issues; Discussion of legal issues;

Facilitating learning and scholarly discussion; Business Government ;and Social networking


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Why are they Important?

- They allow millions of people to easily publish their ideas, and millionsmore to comment on them.

- Blogging has redrawn the line between private communication and

mass publication.

- Blogging is considered as a form of expression and a means tomaintain and build social connection.

- Sources estimate that there were up to 200 million blogs in 2006

(Blog Herald).

- 75 % of all blogs are written in English, Japanese or Korean.

- Blogging is very popular in Asia particularly China, India and Iran.


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What are the Major Legal Risks?

- The major legal risks in blogging are:

Defamation;

Potential disclosure of trade secrets;

Employment of liability issues; and

Copyright infringement.


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Which Copyright Law is

Applicable?- The current applicable law in Jordan is the Copyright Law No.

22 of 1999 as amended.

- It consists of 62 articles and corresponds to the internationalcopyright treaties to which Jordan is a signatory.

- It is based on the European copyright model (French) which

gives attention to authors moral rights.

- This is in contrast to the U.S. copyright model that

concentrates particularly on economic rights of the author.


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What Influenced the Development

of the Law?

- The main factors that influenced the development of

Jordanian Copyright Law include:

Joining the Berne Convention (July 28, 1999);

Joining the WTO on April 11, 2000 (136th

member of theWTO);

Signing an FTA with the US on December 17, 2001

(JUSFTA);

Joining the World Copyright Treaty (WCT) of 1996 (April 27,2004); and

Joining the WPPT of 1996 on May 24, 2004.


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How Jordan Changed its Law to Deal with

the Digital Revolution

- Jordans Copyright Law was amended on several

occasions:

Protection of computer software (Article (3) (b) (8));

Extended the rights of copyright owners to include the

right to control the online distribution of digital materials(Article (9) (f));

Included civil and criminal liability for the removal oralteration of Electronic Rights Management Information(ERMI) (Watermarks) (Article 54);

Included provisions on prohibiting the circumvention oftechnological protection measures (TPMs) (Encryption)(Article 55).


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Practical Tips for Jordanian

Bloggers Quote only a small portions of copyrighted works for quotation or criticism;

Always credit the author and provide the full source of the URL;

Consider providing links, instead of copying and pasting whole articles fromthe internet;

Seek permission when you can through licensing (e.g. traditional licenses or

Creative Commons); Dont assume that works that are available online are not copyright protected

and are in the public domain for others to copy;

Respond promptly to takedown notices from copyright owners or blog hosts;

Provide appropriate disclaimers and terms of use whenever possible;

Read the Jordanian Copyright Law and know your rights and limitations; and

Ask a lawyer


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Jordanian Copyright Law (1)

- Jordanian Copyright Law protects blogs just like any other works provided that they are

innovative. Article 3 (A& D) provides as follows:

Innovated literary, artistic and scientific works regardless of their kind, importance or the

purpose of their production shall enjoy protection by virtue of this law.

The protection shall encompass works which are expressed in writing, sound, drawing,

photography or movement and in particular:

1- Books, booklets or other written material.Protection shall also encompass the collections of literary or artistic works such as

encyclopedias, selections and collected data whether or not collected in a machine readable

form. provided that such collections represent as to their selection or the arrangement of their

contents innovated intellectual works.- Article 8 of the Copyright Law gives authors moral rights. It provides as follows:

Only the author has:

B- The right to make the decision regarding the publication of his work and the specification of

the mode and date of publication.


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Jordanian Copyright Law (2)

- A blogger is not entitled to publish photos in his blog unless

he first obtains the consent of the people that their picture were

taken (Article 26);

- A Jordanian blogger can publish a photo in his blog of any

public figure without needing to obtain his consent or for a

public incident (Article 26);

- A Jordanian blogger could publish works owned by others in

his blog without obtaining their consent, provided that the

publication is for quotation, discussion and critique (Article 17).


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Problems with Copyright and the

internet

Permission - can be very difficult to obtain or

give:

Practically - identifying the copyright owner(s) and

getting in contact with him is time consuming;

Legally knowing what to ask for and give;

Economically usually very expensive and time

consuming to clear copyrights from their owners; and

Limitations hard to understand.


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Jordanian Copyright Law

Does Jordanian Copyright Law

adequately deal with the digital revolution

and the internet?

Should the Jordanian Copyright Law

accommodate and encourage user-

generated content? And if so, How?


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Problems with Jordanian Copyright

LawJordanian Copyright law is important. However, it:

Does not reflect the ambitions of a developing country thatneeds to have a modest copyright system that benefits fromthe internet and the digital revolution;

Does not encourage user- created content, as it is alignedmore toward copyright owners rather than users and thepublic;

Does not benefit fully from the flexibilities contained in

international copyright treaties (Berne, TRIPS and WCT); Stifles creativity and innovation by not including any

limitations on TPMs and RMI, as this is critical for thedevelopment of IT research and IT sector in Jordan.


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What Does the Future look like?

- A revision to Article 3 of the Jordanian Copyright Law should beseriously considered.

- A new limitation on authors exclusive rights for creative and

transformative work should be introduced into the Jordanian Copyright Law

(and broaden the current list of limitations);

- Jordanian Copyright Law of 1999 should benefit fully from the flexibilitiescontained in the international copyright treaties mainly Berne, TRIPS and

WCT;

- Jordanian bloggers should understand and use flexible licensing

regimes such as Creative Commons (CC) to make their work available for

sharing and reuse;

- Inserting new provision into the Jordanian Copyright law to protect

innocent ISPs from copyright liability; and

- Free and open source software (FOSS) should be seriously considered in

Jordan and the Arab world as they can bring many opportunities to the

region.
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References

- Kristie D. Prinz, Recent Developments in Blog Law, available at

www.prinzlawoffice.com/documents/Jun-14-2007_000.ppt

- Peter Black (ed), Copyright and New Technologies, available at

www.freedomtodiffer.com/freedom_to_differ/files/Copyright_and_New_ Technolo- Jessica Coats, Creative Commons Clinic, CC Australia, 2007.

- Anthony Austin (ed), CCI Blog, Podcast, Vodcast and Wiki Legal Guide for Australia,

October 2008

-Participative Web and User- Created Content, OECD 2008, available athttp://www.oecd.org/document/40/0,3343,en_2649_34223_39428648_1_1_1_1,00.html
http://www.prinzlawoffice.com/documents/Jun-14-2007_000.ppthttp://www.freedomtodiffer.com/freedom_to_differ/files/Copyright_and_New_%20Technologies.ppthttp://www.qut.edu.au/http://www.oecd.org/document/40/0,3343,en_2649_34223_39428648_1_1_1_1,00.htmlhttp://www.freedomtodiffer.com/freedom_to_differ/files/Copyright_and_New_%20Technologies.ppthttp://www.prinzlawoffice.com/documents/Jun-14-2007_000.ppt


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Happy Blogging

Thank-You

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