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Copyright in music: a role for the principles of reverse engineering

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

James Griffin
James Griffin*
Affiliation:
University of Exeter
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Abstract

The rise of popular music in the twentieth century has raised questions about the appropriateness of the current system of copyright law. Copyright law is based around the notion of the individual ‘romantic’ author, an individual who creates with his own innate thoughts. Copyright law provides an exploitable property right to authors – a right, in rem, which may be exercised against the rest of the world. It is a right that may be sold and transferred, a right to which fiscal value may be placed. The property paradigm of copyright is one that is exclusionary. Popular music reveals that copyright works may be collaborative in nature, and this can bring into question whether an exclusionary property-based model is appropriate. Historically, copyright has not always been based around the property paradigm; some early cases highlighted the ‘merit’ of the potentially infringing work, and they focused on the manner of creation of that potentially infringing work. Some later cases have also emphasised the manner of creation of a copyright work. These are cases that concern what is termed ‘reverse engineering’– a modern term that encapsulates how an earlier work is used in a later work. Paradigmatically, to focus on reverse engineering is to mark a move away from the property paradigm of copyright. This paper argues that to institute such a methodological approach would lead to a more accurate ontology and would thus lead to more efficient legal regulation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Legal Studies , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , December 2010 , pp. 653 - 673
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Legal Scholars 2010

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References

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97. A rich format is one that contains identifiable commands. For detailed discussion see T Simcoe Open Standards and Intellectual Property Rights, available at http://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/timothy.simcoe/papers/OpenStandards_IPR.pdf.

98. For example, the Quake 3 engine called idTech3; see the website available at http://www.moddb.com/engines/id-tech-3.

99. Sawkins v Hyperion, above n 2, at 3295.

100. D'Almaine v Boosey (1835) 1 Y & C Ex 288; Austin v Columbia Gramophone Co Ltd[1917–23] MacCC 398; Francis Day & Hunter Ltd v Bron[1963] Ch 587.

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103. See above n 4.

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107. CDPA 1988, s 50B. The section is implementing Directive 91/250/EC on the Legal Protection of Computer Software, OJ L122/42. This section should be read in conjunction with s 50BA. That section permits certain acts for the observation, study and testing of computer programs: ‘(1) It is not an infringement of copyright for a lawful user of a copy of a computer program to observe, study or test the functioning of the program in order to determine the ideas and principles which underlie any element of the program if he does so while performing any of the acts of loading, displaying, running, transmitting or storing the program which he is entitled to do’.

108. 17 USC §107.

109. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Pub. 105–304, 28 October 1998, 112 Stat 2860 (DMCA).

110. Sega v Accolade 977 F.2d 1510 (9th Circuit, 1992).

111. Ibid, at 1514.

112. Lexmark v Static Control 387 F.3d 522 (6th Circuit, 2004).

113. Atari Games Corp v Nintendo of America Inc 975 F.2d 832 (Federal Circuit, 1992).

114. Lexmark v Static Control, above n 112, at 529; Atari v Nintendo, ibid, at 836.

115. Atari v Nintendo, ibid, at 844.

116. Note that in the UK CDPA 1988, s 50B uses the word ‘necessary’, but there is no case-law on its interpretation.

117. Computer Associates v Altai 982 F.2d 693 (2nd Circuit, 1992).

118. Atari v Nintendo, above n 113, at 839.

119. Sega v Accolade, above n 110, at 1524.

120. Baker v Selden 101 US 99 (1879).

121. Ibid, at 103, cited by Sega v Accolade, above n 110, at 1524 but in reference to Baker v Selden at 104 (103 introduces the argument at 104).

122. Sega v Accolade, ibid, at 1524

123. Ibid, at 1525.

124. As at 1 May 2010. Details of the operation of the system are available at http://www.bearcave.com/misl/misl_tech/msdrm/readme.html.

125. Ibid. The closest nearest success is detailed at http://www.mydigitallife.info/2006/09/09/crack-remove-and-disable-windows-media-player-drm-license-acquisition-and-music-copy-protection-with-fairuse4wm/ but this only works on content that is already licensed.

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127. Additional parts are: ‘(3) The information acquired through the acts permitted under paragraph (1), and the means permitted under paragraph (2), may be made available to others if the person referred to in paragraph (1) or (2), as the case may be, provides such information or means solely for the purpose of enabling interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, and to the extent that doing so does not constitute infringement under this title or violate applicable law other than this section. (4) For purposes of this subsection, the term “interoperability” means the ability of computer programs to exchange information, and of such programs mutually to use the information which has been exchanged’.

128. Lexmark v Static Control, above n 112, at 546.

129. Universal City Studios, Inc v Reimerdes 82 F.Supp.2d 211 (SDNY, 2000).

130. See the website available at http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2009/07/09/brian-eno-on-genius-and-scenius/.