Vol. 12 No. 11 (November 2002)

COPYRIGHT AND MULTIMEDIA WORKS: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS by Irini A. Stamatoudi.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 334 pp.  Cloth $80.  ISBN 0-521-80819-7.

Reviewed by Mark Perry, Faculty of Law and Department of Computer Science, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada

The approach of COPYRIGHT AND MULTIMEDIA WORKS is a little different from other works that have addressed multimedia and copyright. Earlier books have focused primarily on production and publication problems, satisfying the need for practical reference works for lawyers or publishers in a new and booming market. COPYRIGHT AND MULTIMEDIA WORKS is more theoretical in nature, although it has a target audience of practitioners and policy makers, in addition to students and academics. It raises awareness of the problems surrounding the categorisation of multimedia. Furthermore, it addresses a lacuna in copyright regimes where they are faced with the inherent complexities of protecting the more sophisticated “second generation” multimedia works. The book also provides a solution to these issues by suggesting a new category of work within copyright protection and a new brand of targeted protection through legislation especially for multimedia (i.e. something akin to a Multimedia Protection Act).

Though consisting of eleven chapters, COPYRIGHT AND MULTIMEDIA WORKS falls into three main parts: the identification of multimedia, its (mis)placement in categories of copyright work, and a conclusion describing the author’s solution to the problems associated with the copyright regime that are illustrated in the earlier chapters. The first two chapters deal with the identification, description and categorisation of the distinguishing features of multimedia. This part does not recognise that multimedia was used as a term in the 1960s in relation to art that involved many different means of expression—in particular “installation” art. These less technical origins are ignored by the author, which is a pity as these early expressions of installation art were often exhibited in a way that would satisfy many of the requisites and attributes of even the second generation multimedia works as categorised in COPYRIGHT AND MULTIMEDIA WORKS, with the exception of digitisation. The book begins by trying, with some success, to describe, if not define, the nature and essence of multimedia. There is also a little on the origins of copyright, though this is probably too little for those who are aware of the development of this branch of intellectual property. In this part of the book the essentials of multimedia are identified. The emphasis is on interactivity, digitisation, the combination of different forms of expression (such as sound and text), and the expression of the multimedia work as a single unified product. These opening chapters form the key to the rest of the book, as they draw the boundaries around the term multimedia, which has seen a wide range of interpretations over the last decade. For legal systems in many jurisdictions the problem of identification of a work is compounded because the different types of material that are usually embodied in multimedia works have been traditionally treated in slightly different ways within their intellectual property regimes. Though it is seemingly obvious what is meant by multimedia, as we all “know” this kind of work when we see it, there is difficulty in defining multimedia in clear terms that can be used for legal analysis, particularly in the realm of intellectual property. The real value of COPYRIGHT AND MULTIMEDIA WORKS is that it brings attention to these conceptual problems and suggests some solutions.

The second part of the book (chapters 3-9) deals with comparisons within known areas of copyright. These include traditional literary treatises, compilations, databases, audiovisual works, and computer programs. The focus here is to describe the protection of these various formats, primarily under the legislation of European countries, and show the problems encountered when trying to fit multimedia within one of these pre-existing categories.  This section of the book gives good coverage of comparative European and United States law. However, here the tenor of COPYRIGHT AND MULTIMEDIA WORKS sometimes has negative undertones. For example, in this part the inclusion of compilations and software into the intellectual property legislative framework is discussed at length, but doing so is described as a “depurification” of the notion of copyright and its original aims. However, copyright started as a response to the spread of new technologies, and since then it has been adapted to the needs of a changing world, to include such media as sound recordings and films under the copyright umbrella in the last century.

The second part also looks at possible approaches to the protection of multimedia works within the current categories of copyright, all of which are found lacking. Though the book is comparative in scope, the experiences of some jurisdictions that may have been analytically useful are ignored. For example, there is a whole section discussing compilations, culminating in the statement that the main argument against categorising multimedia works as compilations is that “the definition of a compilation is closely associated with that of a literary work”(p87). However, in New Zealand multimedia works are treated as compilations and thus (under its copyright legislation) as literary works. It may be easier to shift the scope of definitions within the legislation rather than create new categories as suggested by the author.

Chapter 8 looks at video games, a good test case as there has been ample litigation over the last ten years, and these games come within the genre of multimedia, albeit, in the eyes of the author, a primitive form. Again, according to the author, the precedents taken from video games do not provide a solution to the problems posed by multimedia, especially the newer, more sophisticated ones. Chapter 9 provides a segue between problems illustrated in the preceding chapters and those that follow. It focuses upon the question of qualification for copyright—that is, whether it is necessary to categorise a work as a particular type in order to have the benefits of legislative protection. The author here concludes that multimedia works need special classification to avoid the pitfalls that occur with the current situation in Europe, rather than, as I would suggest, a redefinition of the terminology of words such as “compilation.”

The finale of the book (chapters 10 & 11) is to call for new copyright classifications and multimedia protection legislation in the vein of the European Database Protection Directive. These arguments are reminiscent of the discussion that surrounded the application of copyright to software over twenty years ago, before it became generally accepted that code could be effectively protected in this manner. This is one way of approaching problems with new technologies, and one that has been adopted in the past, particularly in the United States with legislation such as that dealing with Cybersquatting, and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Though effective in the sense that they address the problem at hand, such legislation may also, in the long term, prove not to work in favour of maintaining the balance between public good and private gain.

In looking at this book, it should be noted that discussions of multimedia are neither new nor rare: the Library of Congress, for example, has some 1500 works with multimedia in the title (although many of these may be multimedia works rather than about multimedia). However, there are several good texts and a large number of articles in law journals that deal with multimedia and its relationship with the legal system. COPYRIGHT AND MULTIMEDIA WORKS is distinguishable from earlier books, as it is a focused academic study on the intersection of copyright and multimedia on a more theoretical plane. It is not a “How-To” practitioner tract. On the contrary, this book provides an analysis of just where multimedia works can fit within the intellectual property framework, with particular emphasis on copyright. For some political science scholars COPYRIGHT AND MULTIMEDIA WORKS may be a little on the technical legal side, but nonetheless it will be of interest to those who follow intellectual property policy and the location of multimedia within it. Although the United States copyright regime is mentioned from time to time, this is usually as a counterpoint to United Kingdom or other European legislation. Indeed, although the title of the work does contain the moniker “comparative,” it is primarily EU/UK/US centric. There are a number of niggles with this work that may put off non-lawyers. For example, there is an incessant use of Latin throughout. It is easy to fall into this trap as a lawyer when a term such as “sui generis” can encapsulate the idea of making special legislation to deal with a particular problem, my feeling is that Latin terms should be avoided or explained when used in a work that is to have a wider audience.

As an aside, it is worth noting that many publishers, including Cambridge University Press, are providing sample chapters of their works online (Chapter 1, along with the table of contents, of COPYRIGHT AND MULTIMEDIA WORKS is available in Adobe PDF format). Such measures can only benefit potential readers/purchasers of such works, although in this case one of the later chapters would have been more representative of the book. My feeling is that Chapter 1 of COPYRIGHT AND MULTIMEDIA WORKS is not the best. Chapter 2 also continues in this vein with some sweeping, sometimes very strange statements, including such assertions as: compression techniques abolish physical constraints like space, time, storage and circulation of information; digitisation leads to a dematerialisation of information (I would have thought the reverse); and so forth. There is a certain discomfort with technology throughout the book, though the selection of works in the bibliography is excellent.

All in all, COPYRIGHT AND MULTIMEDIA WORKS is a book that I would recommend to those who have an interest in intellectual property rights and their development in the face of new technologies. Anyone working with multimedia products will also find it a fascinating read, although at times a challenging one.

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Copyright 2002 by the author, Mark Perry.