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In this section I list the regulations that would
have to apply to the Distributed Intellectual Property Rights system
and the digital intellectual products described above.
As the Author
and Consumer Rights Offices
make-up the fundamental structure that records and identifies the
rights and property ownership of both the creators and the consumers
they would require high levels of security and maximum legal protection
against fraudulent use or attack. Some of the legal requirements
would be:
- Author Rights Offices would have a legal responsibility to register
only products that have a legal owner and record only the valid
licence identifications they are given during a transaction.
- Consumer Rights Offices would be required to only licence products
to their own registered users and record only the valid product
and rights information that is given to them during a rights transaction.
Consumer Rights Offices would not subsequently be allowed to change
the owner of individual products.
- Both offices would be required to hold personal and commercial
information in confidence.
- There will be product ownership verification rules that each office
will have to adhere to.
- Secure transactions between offices would also be legally protected.
I foresee that these legal regulations for the
administrative offices could be quite onerous, like regulations
for banks and stock exchanges, but I also foresee that these stringent
regulations should not impinge on the day-to-day use of the system
by consumers.
The identified digital manifestations of the intellectual
products will also be regulated but in a concise way so that it
is clear to everyone what can and cannot be done. For example:
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The intellectual
component of the digital product is not allowed to be reproduced
separately from the Property Rights Descriptor (PRD).
(Although the digital product may be reduced to the PRD alone).
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The digital product
cannot be traded or used in any commercial form without obtaining
express permission from the creator. This, I believe, would be
a departure from current copyright law where copyrighted work
can be sold-on. This ‘first sale’ article was enacted
to promote the dissemination of information. In this digital age
there are not the same problems of distributing information as
there were 200 years ago. (More on this in the next section under
the ‘first sale’
heading).
-
The consumer who
owns an identified manifestation of a digital product may lend
a copy to another consumer, who would be identified in the DIPR
environment as a consumer claiming their common rights, but this
third party has no rights over the physical digital product only
the unregulated common right to the intellectual component. The
lender would be responsible for identifying the recipient in the
DIPR system.
-
The digital product
can be converted form one digital medium to another providing
both mediums support the PRD structure and the intellectual content
and its PRD are not modified in the process.
-
Modifying the digital
product, which is made up of the intellectual component and a
PRD is only allowed if special rules are adhered to.
Today there is a time limit on copyrightable material
and this should continue in the DIPR system but I believe the PRD
identification should stay with the product indefinitely, either
as the original existing PRD, or maybe a better solution would be
to have an Author Rights Office available to issue free PRD to products
with lapsed copyright or collective
right status.
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