The WIPO "Internet Treaties" and copyright in the "Cloud"
2018-07-12
2018-07-12
The paper has been presented as a keynote speech at the ALAI Congress organized in Kyoto, Japan, from October 16 to 18. It analyses how the rights provided in the WIPO "Internet Treaties" - in particular, the rights of reproduction, distribution and makig available to the public - are applicable in the "cloud" environement. It also reviews the relevant case law (rulings of both national courts and of the CJEU) concerning both those services which began functioning already before the "conceptualization" of the "Cloud" (such as "virtual video recorders," social networks, UGC platforms, etc.) and the "cloud-native" services (such as "cyberlockers" and cloud-based distribution systems) along with case law concerning hosting services (since cloud services, in general, are qualified as such). The paper also discusses the application of exceptions and limitation and the question of exhaustion of rights in the "Cloud," as well as the role of DRM systems in support of legal cloud-based services.