Law Commons^™

Copyright Laws Caught In The Web: Viacom International V Youtube, Matthew Rimmer

Matthew Rimmer

Back in the 1996, the World Intellectual Property Organisation promulgated internet treaties to help protect copyright owners in the digital environment. The United States passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1998 (US) to comply with its treaty obligations; and Australia has spasmodically revised its copyright laws in 2000, 2004, and 2006 to deal with new technological developments.Such a regime has been ill-adapted to deal with a new generation of Internet services - described by the open source publisher, Tim O'Reilly, as "Web 2.0" - which have encouraged users to create, share, and remix content. The term, "Web 2.0", has been …

How To Be Alone: New Dimensions In Privacy Law, Matthew Rimmer

Matthew Rimmer

The book, New Dimensions in Privacy Law, has an arresting cover — a pack of paparazzi take photographs, with their flash-bulbs popping and exploding, like starbursts in the sky. The collection explores the valiant efforts of courts and parliaments to defend the privacy of individuals against such unwanted intrusions.

The American essayist and novelist, Jonathan Franzen, has reflected upon the tenuous, derelict state of privacy law:

"The right to privacy — defined by Louis Brandeis and Samuel Warren, in 1890, as ‘the right to be let alone’ — seems at first glance to be an elemental principle in American life. …