A universal copyright fund: A new way to bridge the copyright divide

• Main Authors: LIU, Kung-chung, SUN, Haochen
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2006
• Subjects: Copyright; Copyright Divide; Universal Service; Telecommunications; Universal Copyright Fund; Compulsory Licensing; Berne Convention; TRIPS; Developing Countries and Least Developed Countries; Intellectual Property Law
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sol_research/3127; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sol_research/article/5085/viewcontent/1_2_2_.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

The ever-increasing digitization of works, along with the deployment of technical measures to protect such works and the expansive use of the Internet, further exacerbate the divide between the IP-rich and IP-poor countries in their ability to benefit from such works. It is suggested by this paper that to borrow from experiences on how the telecommunications world provides universal service to each and every household at affordable prices, and to endeavor to shed some new light on how the copyright divide can be narrowed. It is structured in three parts. The first part will examine the past and future failure of the current compulsory licensing scheme which was worked out in the last century in the international copyright treaties, followed by a study of the universal services arrangement in telecommunications in the second part. The third part will envisage a universal copyright fund for the world community to consider.