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Ohly, Ansgar --- "Economic Rights" [2009] ELECD 168; in Derclaye, Estelle (ed), "Research Handbook on the Future of EU Copyright" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009)

Book Title: Research Handbook on the Future of EU Copyright

Editor(s): Derclaye, Estelle

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847203922

Section: Chapter 9

Section Title: Economic Rights

Author(s): Ohly, Ansgar

Number of pages: 49

Extract:

8 Authorship, ownership, wikiship: copyright
in the 21st century
Jeremy Phillips*



Roadmap
This chapter starts by contrasting approaches to copyright law that are driven
by the contemplation of generalities with those that are shaped by study of
specific situations that may not comply with those generalities. Then, taking
the wiki as its paradigm, it seeks to explain what a wiki is, whether it is even
an apt subject for copyright law as we understand it in the European Union and
whether it is additionally a subject of the law that governs sui generis database
right. There follow some brief exercises in identifying questions that must be
answered when identifying the author for copyright purposes, in examining
the applicability of moral rights to wiki contributors. Finally, the chapter asks
whether the apparent silence of the European Commission regarding the legal
status of the wiki is a positive silence or a negative one, concluding with a
review of consensual solutions as a means of avoiding legal battles surround-
ing the uncertainty of the wiki's status.
Of necessity, much of this chapter is speculative. There is no rich tapestry
of European national litigation or scholarly writing to which reference may be
made and such controversies as wikis have generated have been led more by
issues of accuracy of content and of political control than by considerations
relating to intellectual property. Like the elephant at the breakfast table,
Wikipedia is so vast an enterprise that it cannot be ignored. This chapter, while
mentioning ...