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Copyright Management and Control Systems: Post-Infringement |
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 Post-infringement technologies allow the owners of copyrighted works to identify infringements and thus enhance enforcement of intellectual property rights and encompass systems such as:
Steganography
Applied to electronic files, steganography refers to the process of hiding information in files that can not be easily detected by users. Steganography can be used by intellectual property owners in a variety of ways. One is to insert into the file a "digital watermark" which can be used to prove that an infringing file was the creation of the copyright holder and not the pirate. Other possibilities are to encode a unique serial number into each authorized copy or file, enabling the owner to trace infringing copies to a particular source, or to store copyright management information.
Agents
Agents are programs that can implement specified commands automatically. Copyright owners can use agents to search the public spaces of the Internet to find infringing copies. Although the technology is not yet very well developed full-text search engines allow similar uses.
Copyright Litigation
While not every infringement will be the subject of litigation, the threat of litigation helps keep large pirate operations in check. It helps copyright owners obtain relief for specific acts of infringement and publicly warns others of the dangers of infringement.
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1996 WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT)
The
1996 WIPO
Copyright Treaty, which focused on taking steps to protect copyright
"in the digital age" among other provisions 1) makes clear
that computer programs are protected as literary works, 2) the
contracting parties must protect databases that constitute
intellectual creations, 3) affords authors with the new right of
making their works "available to the public", 4) gives
authors the exclusive right to authorize "any communication to
the public of their works, by wire or wireless means ... in such a
way that members of the public may access these works from a place
and at a time individually chosen by them." and 5) requires the
contracting states to protect anti-copying technology and copyright
management information that is embedded in any work covered by the
treaty. The WCT is available on:  http://www.wipo.int/documents/en/diplconf/distrib/94dc.htm
 http://www.wipo.int/documents/en/diplconf/dis...
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