Reassessing the challenge of the digital. An empirical perspective on authorship and copyright

Abstract

Policymakers have long noted the challenges posed by new internet and digital technologies to copyright's category of authorship. As the European Commission expressed at the advent of the internet, in its Green Paper Copyright and Related Rights in the Information Society of 1995:The traditional picture of the author as a craftsman working more or less in isolation and using wholly original materials is contradicted by new forms of creation. The new products and services are increasingly the outcome of a process in which a great many people have taken part -their individual contributions often difficult to identify -and in which several different techniques have been used […] (European Commission, 1995, p. 25).The perception that creative practices of the digital age often involve the contributions of many people is thought to complicate the task of identifying the author. 1 In addition, scholars noted how digital technology, in facilitating collaboration, was 'hastening … the demise of the illusion that writing is solitary and originary' (Woodmansee, 1994, p. 25). As Martha Woodmansee expressed, this was a development that sat uneasily with a proprietary notion of authorship:Electronic communication seems to be assaulting the distinction between mine and thine that the modern authorship construct was designed to enforce (1994, p. 26). 2

Public open collaborative creation (POCC): A new archetype of authorship?

“…For a considerable period of time, the notion of authorship in copyright law has been subject to scrutiny on the grounds that it fails to adequately recognize and provide for new forms of authorship that have emerged within the digital humanities (Cooper, , pp. 175–176) .…”