The rise of generative AI (GenAI) is challenging a legal and ethical foundation of the open-source software movement: attribution. Open-source licenses, such as Apache 2.0, require developers to credit the original creators, but GenAI models trained on massive code corpora cannot practically trace or attribute their outputs. This “technical impossibility” is being used by AI companies as an excuse to disregard licensing terms, a stance challenged in cases like Doe 1 v. GitHub, where the court allowed license violations to be pursued as contract claims, independent of fair use. The chapter argues that this failure to comply could undermine the collaborative culture of open source. The path forward requires either technical attribution solutions, new licensing frameworks specifically for AI, or legal pressure to force compliance. The core question is whether the open-source revolution will be sacrificed for the sake of the AI revolution.

This chapter focuses on Puccini’s 1907 tour to New York, following the disastrous premiere of Madama Butterfly at La Scala and reflecting a longer engagement with US culture on the composer’s part. Puccini could embody a lineage of now vanished Italian composers for New York critics, and the New York visit followed a similar tour to Buenos Aires in 1905. But the emergence of gramophone opera recordings offered an alternative model of transatlantic encounter, as Italian operatic voices were increasingly mediated through American technology. Opera discs promised a specifically American form of operatic experience, I argue, one that was the source of considerable cultural and legal controversy between US companies and Italian composers. Madama Butterfly’s plot and opposing sound worlds can ultimately be heard as a meditation on broader Italian-American tensions, shaped by contemporary discourses around Italian vocality and American materialism. Madama Butterfly emerges at the centre of a changing auditory culture in the early twentieth century, in which Puccini’s musicalized Japan has suggestive echoes of Italy.

The press publishers’ right (granted under Art. 15 of the EU’s 2019 Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market) equips publishers with a legal basis for negotiations with digital intermediaries. However, the process of bargaining has not been specified by the EU legislator, which left it to the discretion of EU Member States and the market. This chapter examines the four main approaches to the operationalisation of the press publishers’ right in the EU, in contrast with the bargaining framework that has evolved in Australia without the underpinning of a new intellectual property right. It analyses these frameworks from the perspective of ‘bargaining in the shadow of the law’ to understand the relationship between statutory law and private bargaining as mediated by institutional frameworks. By defining and coding key parameters concerning the bargaining parties, their endowments (bargaining chips), measures to mitigate dependencies and the role played by the authority (such as a regulator), the chapter shows that bargaining frameworks sit as complex institutional constraints between pure private ordering and the law. It is the shape of the bargaining framework that matters for the range and frequency of agreements between press publishers and digital platforms.

In 2019, the EU legislature introduced a right in favour of press publishers over their press publications. The rationale supporting EU intervention in relation to Article 15 of Directive 2019/790 on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (CDSMD) is multi-fold, ranging from support for press publishers when licensing the use of press publications to ensuring a fair marketplace and the protection of a free and pluralist press in performing its societal functions. Article 15 CDSMD has now been transposed at the national level. Despite the harmonizing objective of EU legislature, the resulting legal landscape across the EU appears fragmented. Focusing on the exclusion of ‘very short extracts’ of press publications and considering selected divergent national transpositions, this chapter investigates whether such divergences will thwart the harmonization objective of 15 CDSMD, whether they are incompatible with EU law, and, if so, what the solutions could be. The chapter’s title question is answered: harmonization is necessary, but where the instrument chosen is a directive, national legislatures must correctly interpret and act within the freedom afforded to them under EU law. In many national transpositions of Article 15 CDSMD, this has not occurred.

Generative AI systems threaten to usurp the market for human press and media productions. To enable journalists to act as ‘watchdogs’, highlight societal problems, and prompt necessary changes, remuneration rules should offer support for quality journalistic work by humans. In the EU, the rights reservation option following from Article 4(3) of the 2019 Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market – now flanked by the provisions of the AI Act – could support a remuneration system focusing on the use of human journalistic content for AI training. While AI training income would benefit media companies that own large repertoires of journalistic work, individual journalists might not receive an appropriate revenue share. This chapter suggests introducing a general output-based payment obligation on all providers and users of generative AI systems involved in media productions: both companies offering generative AI systems and companies using these systems in the media sector. Mandatory collective rights management could ensure payment directly to individual journalists, as in the repartitioning schemes of collecting societies. The remuneration could also finance funds that improve journalists’ working and living conditions. When distributing AI remuneration, social and cultural institutions could prioritise public interest journalism as a countermeasure to AI-generated misinformation and disinformation.

The importance of copyright law is generally not reflected in media law and policy. Recent legislative initiatives, such as the European Media Freedom Act, have failed to address the chilling effects of restrictive copyright rules on media activities. New forms and platforms for digital journalism and the increasing role of artificial intelligence require adaptation of the legal framework. A holistic legal approach is needed to address threats to values such as freedom of expression and of the press. The role of the media as ‘public watchdog’ creates constitutional imperatives, derived from European human rights instruments, to enable them to use subject matter protected by copyright. This chapter argues that the emerging theory of digital constitutionalism can help to develop a common framework for media and copyright law. It identifies copyright limitations and exceptions as the most appropriate mechanisms to enable this. The chapter proposes reforms of copyright exceptions to remove the chilling effects created by exclusive rights and to facilitate the media’s use of information in their role as democracy’s Fourth Estate. The chapter proposes further concretising of digital constitutionalism, placing media and copyright law within a broad regulatory framework for constitutionally protected values in the digital space.

This chapter discusses the history and evolution of international intellectual property rights (IPRs) protection, focusing on the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement. It examines the justifications for and debates surrounding the extension of developed country-style IPRs to developing nations, as well as the TRIPS provisions themselves. The chapter also addresses the conflicts between TRIPS and other international regimes, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the significant public health concerns raised by TRIPS, particularly regarding access to essential medicines. Finally, it concludes by analysing the distributive impact of TRIPS and the challenges posed by emerging technologies like artificial intelligence.

Chapter 9 is on the different motives and ways through which social actors destroy images, and the consequences of these actions on different forms of image ‘death’. Analysing image destruction could show the different dynamics of what is tolerated in the public space, what is deemed appropriate, representable, and visible, and what is deemed offensive and needs to be made invisible. Methods for researching absences will be presented and applied on the case example of digital memes.

This chapter will delve into the relationship between intellectual property (IP) and human-computer interaction (HCI), examining how intellectual property rights and limitations influence the design process, drive technological progress, and shape user experiences.The chapter provides detailed discussions of the three main types of IP providing recognition and/or financial benefit for what people invent or create: patent, copyright, and trademark.

Plagiarism is not illegal, but copyright infringement is, and laws concerning copyright have evolved to favor the rights of content creators at the expense of those who might wish to make use of or transform this work. The use of copyrighted material is allowed under limited circumstances known as fair use. These include exceptions for parody and using work for educational purposes. However, there are gray areas, and this chapter describes a couple of these. One is fan fiction, in which writers make use of the characters and worlds created by published authors. Some authors encourage this, while others deplore it. Another is cookbooks, since lists of ingredients or procedures can’t be copyrighted. The chapter also includes three domains in which plagiarism seems to be rampant. One is the content of commencement addresses. Many speakers at graduation ceremonies have used the speeches of others, incorrectly believing they were free for the taking. Another is music that employs short samples from earlier, copyrighted songs. And contests that require the creation of new music for competitions – such as the annual Eurovision contest – seem tailor-made for plagiarism to occur.

Clothing designs can be beautiful. But they are also functional. Fashion’s dual nature sits uneasily in intellectual property law, and its treatment by copyright, trademark, and design patent laws has often been perplexing. Much of this difficulty arises from an unclear understanding of the nature of functionality in fashion design. This chapter proposes a robust account of fashion’s function. It argues that aspects of garment designs are functional not only when they affect the physical or technological performance of a garment but also when they affect the perception of the wearer’s body. Generally, clothes are not designed or chosen simply to look good. They are also characteristically designed or chosen to look good on. This approach clarifies the appropriate treatment of fashion design in intellectual property, and it exposes the conceptual limitations of the U.S. Supreme Court’s copyright decision in Star Athletica, L.L.C. v Varsity Brands, Inc.

Since the 2000s, Chinese factories have been notorious for imitating and copying luxury fashion designs, a phenomenon known as ‘shanzhai’. Within the fashion industry, two primary categories of shanzhai practices exist: the imitation or copying of a brand’s name or trademarks, referred to as “counterfeits,” and the imitation or copying of a brand’s designs, referred to as ‘knockoffs’. While band owners can easily enforce their legal rights against the trademark-infringing counterfeits, knockoffs remain a significant concern for international brand owners, since these design features are frequently denied trademark protection. Recent judicial practices suggest that fashion designs and design features in China can be protected under the Anti-Unfair Competition Law. Moreover, Chinese courts are increasingly open to the registration of signature design patterns as non-traditional trademarks, including three-dimensional trademarks and colour trademarks. This chapter provides a comprehensive exploration of China’s evolving approach to these issues and provides a detailed comparison of copyright, trademark, design patent and unfair competition protections against fashion copycats.

Working from the premises that fashion designers ought to enjoy some form of intellectual property protection over their creations and that they benefit from such protection, this chapter explores the problems that fashion designers are likely to face when seeking to enforce their rights in the United Kingdom. Like other commentators, we conclude that designs law in the United Kingdom is a mess and is in need of reform. We also argue that Brexit has made the problems faced by designers worse, without necessarily creating the policy space for meaningful national reform. One consequence may be that designers are likely to rely even more heavily on the copyright system, but this merely shifts the tensions of Brexit from the legislative and political realms to the judicial realm.

This chapter reviews the fashion industry’s uses of utility patents. It first provides an overview of the fashion industry’s patenting activities, looking at how many patents are granted for fashion-related inventions and how large apparel companies obtain those patents. It then examines companies’ use of patents, looking at how patent litigation in the fashion industry compares to other industries. Finally, it turns to the uneasy tension in fashion between function and aesthetics, examining the specific technologies and inventions being claimed in fashion patents to see what can be inferred about the relationship between fashion and intellectual property

Chapter 5 seeks to identify the normative foundations of a property theory of ownership and custody of cultural objects. It begins by examining the case study of the current legislative, administrative, and judicial framework in Italy, which aims to grant cultural institutions an essentially eternal right to control the reproduction and use of images of their cultural holdings. It then addresses the redefinition of a “museum” adopted in 2022 by the International Council of Museums and the implications this may have for the role of cultural institutions. The chapter then seeks to delineate the contours of a property theory of cultural objects and the corresponding sets of in rem rights and in rem duties that should apply to cultural institutions as both proprietors and custodians, by reconsidering the role of “placeness” of cultural institutions and their collections. In particular, a theory of ownership and custody of cultural objects held by cultural institutions should refer to the link between culture and space in considering the mirror-image questions that have been at the center of legal, professional, and public attention, namely: does a cultural institution have an in rem right to appropriate the value components of cultural objects, such as by limiting or prohibiting others from using or reproducing images of items in its collection; and, conversely, does a cultural institution have an in rem duty, as a custodian of culture, to actively make accessible to the public images and other information on items in its collections?

Intellectual property plays a central role in beer law, and this chapter addresses a range of intellectual property issues including trademarks, geographical indication, patents, know-how, and trade secrets. Importantly, the chapter also analyses the beer market on both a global and local level.

This chapter examines how copyright’s bargain is broken when compared against its incentive and rewards rationales. Copyright grants far exceed what is necessary to incentivise initial production and ongoing investments, and the rewards from creative labour do not filter down to the creators copyright was designed to protect. It then shows how reverting copyright to creators after it has been assigned or licensed, mainly through legal mechanisms, can help address these problems, before examining some of the main arguments against reversion rights (e.g. that it unduly imposes upon the freedom of parties to enter into contractual relationships).

This chapter examines how copyright reversion mechanisms developed in US copyright law. It traces the history of such provisions to its present day iteration (an inalienable right for creators to terminate copyright grants after around 35 years). As with the study of British reversionary rights, the chapter highlights how the US provisions have often been rendered ineffective through the behaviour of rightsholders (both before and after reversion mechanisms have been passed). It focuses on how the current termination scheme operates, highlighting its considerable problems: for example, uncertainty over whether sound recordings are covered, and the sheer difficulty of meeting the formalities necessary to exercise the statutory rights.

This chapter is the last of the statute-focused chapters. It concentrates on how reversion rights have developed across the European Union. It briefly examines historical laws that reflect the incentive and reward concerns of subsequent reversion rights, before providing an overview of prominent types of reversion mechanisms in force in the EU as of 2020. This provides valuable context for an analysis of the most recent reversion development in the EU, the implementation of the 2019 Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive (which required Member States to implement, at minimum, a right to end grants of rights where there was a ‘lack of exploitation’). The chapter demonstrates, however, that this provision, and many of its implementations in the domestic laws of Member States, also suffers from the problems identified in the US and UK chapters – poor design, ineffective triggers and the ability of rightsholders to undermine it, for example by contracting out of the scheme’s intended effect.