Presumably the major player in the field of international
Information on WIPO administered agreements in the field of industrial property (Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property (1883), Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks (1891) etc.) can be found on:
Information on treaties concerning copyright and neighboring rights (Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (1886) etc.) is published on:
The most recent multilateral agreement on copyright is the 1996 WIPO Copyright Treaty. Among other things it provides that computer programs are protected as literary works and also introduces the protection of databases, which "... by reason of the selection or arrangement of their content constitute intellectual creations." Furthermore the
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ISPs (Internet Service Providers) (and to a certain extent also telecom operators) are involved in the copyright debate primarily because of their role in the transmission and storage of digital information. Problems arise particularly concerning
Caching
Caching it is argued could cause damage because the copies in the cache are not necessarily the most current ones and the delivery of outdated information to users could deprive website operators of accurate "hit" information (information about the number of requests for a particular material on a website) from which advertising revenue is frequently calculated. Similarly harms such as defamation or infringement that existed on the original page may propagate for years until flushed from each cache where they have been replicated.
Although different concepts, similar issues to caching arise with mirroring (establishing an identical copy of a website on a different server), archiving (providing a historical repository for information, such as with newsgroups and mailing lists), and full-text indexing (the copying of a document for loading into a full-text or nearly full-text database which is searchable for keywords or concepts).
Under a literal reading of some copyright laws caching constitutes an infringement of copyright. Yet recent legislation like the
Information Residing on Systems or Networks at the Direction of Users
ISPs may be confronted with problems if infringing material on websites (of users) is hosted on their systems. Although some copyright laws like the DMCA provide for limitations on the liability of ISPs if certain conditions are met, it is yet unclear if ISPs should generally be accountable for the storage of infringing material (even if they do not have actual knowledge) or exceptions be established under specific circumstances.
Transitory Communication
In the course of transmitting digital information from one point on a network to another ISPs act as a data conduit. If a user requests information ISPs engage in the transmission, providing of a connection, or routing thereof. In the case of a person sending infringing material over a network, and the ISP merely providing facilities for the transmission it is widely held that they should not be liable for infringement. Yet some copyright laws like the DMCA provide for a limitation (which also covers the intermediate and transient copies that are made automatically in the operation of a network) of liability only if the ISPs activities meet certain conditions.
For more information on copyright (
Harrington, Mark E.: On-line Copyright Infringement Liability for Internet Service Providers: Context, Cases & Recently Enacted Legislation. In:
Teran, G.:
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"Faced with this process of globalization, most governments appear to lack the tools required for facing up to the pressure from important media changes. The new global order is viewed as a daunting challenge, and it most often results in reactions of introversion, withdrawal and narrow assertions of national identity. At the same time, many developing countries seize the opportunity represented by globalization to assert themselves as serious players in the global communications market."
(UNESCO, World Communication Report)
The big hope of the South is that the Internet will close the education gap and economic gap, by making education easier to achieve. But in reality the gap is impossible to close, because the North is not keeping still, but developing itself further and further all the time; inventing new technologies that produce another gap each. The farmer's boy sitting in the dessert and using a cellular telephone and a computer at the same time is a sarcastic picture - nothing else.
Still, the so called developing countries regard modern communication technologies as a tremendous chance - and actually: which other choice is there left?
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Media as today's main information sources unarguably have the power to influence political agenda-setting and public opinion. They decide which topics and issues are covered and how they are reported. Still, in many cases those decisions are not primarily determined by journalistic criteria, but affected by external factors. The importance of shareholders forces media to generate more profit every quarter, which can chiefly be raised by enlarging audiences and hence attracting more advertising money. Therefore the focus of media's programming in many cases shifts towards audience alluring content like entertainment, talk-shows, music and sports.
Further pressure regarding the selection of content occurs from advertisers and marketers, who often implicitly or explicitly suggest to refrain from programming which could show them or their products and services (e.g. tobacco) in an unfavorable light. Interlocking directorships and outright ownerships can moreover be responsible for a selective coverage. Financial connections with defense, banking, insurance, gas, oil, and nuclear power, repeatedly lead (commercial) media to the withholding of information, which could offend their corporate partners. In totalitarian regimes also pressure from political elites may be a reason for the suppression or alteration of certain facts.
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Intellectual property, very generally, relates to the output that result from intellectual activity in the industrial, scientific, literary and artistic fields. Traditionally intellectual property is divided into two branches: 1) industrial property (
Copyright laws generally provide for three kinds of neighboring rights: 1) the rights of performing artists in their performances, 2) the rights of producers of phonograms in their phonograms, and 3) the rights of broadcasting organizations in their radio and television programs. Neighboring rights attempt to protect those who assist intellectual creators to communicate their message and to disseminate their works to the public at large.
Java applets are small programs that can be sent along with a Web page to a user. Java applets can perform interactive animations, immediate calculations, or other simple tasks without having to send a user request back to the server. They are written in Java, a platform-independent computer language, which was invented by
Source: Whatis.com