[1] Thus we see the creation of the Copyright Convergence Group by the Australian Government to examine the best way to modify the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) to allow it to function in this new digital era, with the convergence of communication, computer, and media.

[2] Lim, Y. 'Multimedia: Authorisers of Copyright Infringement?' (1994) 5 J. Law & Info. 306 at p313.

[3] Multimedia as a terms have been over used and often given different connotations. Mckenna, B. 'More Multimedia Legal Issues: Rental and Public Lending Rights' (1995) 14 Com. L. Bull. 10 at p11; and Meeker, H. 'Multimedia and Copyright' (1994) 20 Rutgers Comp. L. J. 375 at p377.

Reference to multimedia in this paper is taken to epitomise the characteristics common to the transmission of information in the new digital, online medium; these characteristics include: use of digital and compression technology; presentation incorporating text, music, graphics, movies, sound.

Some definitions of multimedia can be found in Goldberg, J. 'Now That the Future has Arrived, Maybe the Law Should Take a Look: MultiMedia Technology and Its Interaction with the Fair Use Doctrine' (1995) 44 A.U.L.R. 919 at p921; a very exhaustive definition of "interactive multimedia product" in Saez, C. 'Enforcing Copyright in the Age of Multimedia' (1995) 21 Rutgers Comp. L. J. 351 at p392.

[4] These people are collectively referred to as the "content providers" in this paper.

[5] Eg. This explains why music producers are somewhat paranoid about digital audio technology (DAT) tapes. A compact disk (which uses digital technology) can be copied exactly with absolutely no loss in quality.

[6] Alternatively, the multimedia producers can get the contents by creating their own, or, using content in the public domain. Goldberg, J. 'Now That the Future has Arrived, Maybe the Law Should Take a Look: MultiMedia Technology and Its Interaction with the Fair Use Doctrine' (1995) 44 A.U.L.R. 919 at p923. See also Ginsburg, J. 'Domestic and International Copyright Issues Implicated in the Compilation of a Multimedia Product' (1995) 25 Seton Hall L. R. 1397.

[7] "Identifying and Securing Intellectual Property Rights for Multimedia Works".

[8] See Ginsburg, J., op. cit.

[9] Transaction costs include all the time, money and effort it costs to accurately determine who holds what rights in the works, locate him, her, it or them, establish a contact with the rights holder(s) and in the case of an entity other than a natural person, identify someone who is authorised to grant the rights needed, obtain permission for the use, negotiate an agreeable price, document the agreement and obtain the authorised signature. See "Identifying and Securing Intellectual Property Rights for Multimedia Works"

[10] Meeker, H. 'Multimedia and Copyright' (1994) 20 Rutgers Comp. L. J. 375 at p404.

This is not suggesting that the use of public domain has no problem. There are because This is because the status of a work as a public domain is sometime not very clear. Eg. there may be overlapping expiration date for the different copyright in a work; different length of copyright in different countries (this is compounded by the recent extension in the EC copyright from 50 to 70 years). Meeker, H. 'Multimedia and Copyright' (1994) 20 Rutgers Comp. L. J. 375 at p380- 381.

Even creation of new original work to be use in multimedia products raises its own issue: intellectual property ownership (work-for-hire issues), rights of publicity and privacy, artists' guilds, etc that are often alien to computer professionals.

[11] These include: whether right granted cover future new technology, whether rental rights is included, whether the work can be manipulated, whether the work can be broadcasted online, etc. See Meeker, H., op. cit. at p357- 358.

[12] Meeker, H., op. cit. at p378. The assumption that payout for multimedia work should be the same as the print media is sometimes questioned. See 'Identifying and Securing Intellectual Property Rights for Multimedia Works'.

[13] Lean, M.'Copyright and the World Wide Web'.

[14] Hill , R.'Remunerating Authors and Publishers in a Digital World' (1995).

[15] Lean, M.'Copyright and the World Wide Web'.

[16] Thorp, J. and Rimmer, S. 'An Economic Approach to Copyright Reform' (1995) 8 IPLB 125 at p126.

[17] 'Identifying and Securing Intellectual Property Rights for Multimedia Works', http://www.utsystem.edu/OGC/IntellectualProperty/multimed.htm Ie. There is a generalized reticence on the part of content providers to allow their works to be digitized because they fear a loss of control over their work, without reasonable compensation.

[18] Chang, C., Herskowitz, S. and Lee, S.'Intellectual Property in the Information Age'.

[19] It is so called because it is sort of like 'broadcasting', except that it is on the internet.

[20] Lean, M.'Copyright and the World Wide Web'.

[21] Section 31 of the Act.

[22] Section 196(2).

[23] Chang, C., Herskowitz, S. and Lee, S.'Intellectual Property in the Information Age'.

[24] This is so even without first written by hand: Roland Corporation v Sons Pty Ltd (1991) 22 IPR 245.

[25]Thorp, J. and Rimmer, S. 'An Economic Approach to Copyright Reform' (1995) 8 IPLB 125 at p145.

[26] This is exactly what happened the US case Playboy Enterprise Inc v Frena (1992) 839 F. Supp 1552.

[27] Section 14(1)(a) of Copyright Act 1968; and this is determined by the quality of the alleged copy: Walt Disney Productions v H John Ewards Publishing Co Pty Ltd (1954) 71 WN (NSW) 150.

[28] Zeccola v Universal City Studios Inc (1982) 46 ALR 189.

[29] In the US the "fair use" doctrine, as it stand, seems to allow multimedia developers to use copyright materials. In particular, it has been put that there are good argument in equity to permit 'fair use' in the US- the most compelling argument is the one based on equity, which essentially involve the balancing the interests of the society and that of the copyright holder. Goldberg, J., op. cit. at p953- 960. See also Ginsburg, J., op. cit. at p1404-1407, Chang, C., Herskowitz, S. and Lee, S.'Intellectual Property in the Information Age', http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~cpage/cis590/

[30] Austin, D.'Copyright in Australia' (1994).

[31] Lean, M.'Copyright and the World Wide Web'.

[32] This position in Australia is consistent with the international position (except the US) which tends to suggests that "fair dealing" cannot be exploited to undermine content providers' rights. See Ginsburg, J., op. cit. at p1407.

[33] Besek, J.'US Designs New IP Rights in Cyberspace' (1996); Barlow, J.'The Economy of Ideas: A framework for rethinking patents and copyrights in the Digital Age', http://www.kaz.org/barlow.html. So far as Barlow is concerned the focus of the copyright on the physical means that it will collapse in the new Cyberspace where this emphasis on 'physical' looses meaning.

[34] Branscomb, A. 'Common Law for the Electronic Frontier' (1991) 265 Scientific American 154. In fact, it is not easy to identify the publisher, republisher, reader, or archivist either. See also Griesdorf, W. 'The Laugh of Hypertext' (1994) 9 IPJ 1. which argued that the author and reader distinction does not exist in this medium.

[35] See Chang, C., Herskowitz, S. and Lee, S.'Intellectual Property in the Information Age'. Mallam, P. 'Copyright in a Digital Age' (1995) 8 IPLB 80 at p80. Even given the Bene Convention, the TRIPs agreement the copyright law in the world are not uniform.

[36] Eg. how could a New Zealand author detect what is happening to his work in the million of computer system located in any one of the countries in the world.

[37] Ie. It probably would cost more to hunt down the offender than can be extracted from him or her.

[38] Information, according to Barlow is not something that can be possessed, information is a life form, that it need to move, to change, that its value change depending on the circumstances. See Barlow, J. 'Selling Wine Without Bottles: The Economy of Mind on the Global Net' (1994) 7 IPLB 2.

[39] Hill, R.'Remunerating Authors and Publishers in a Digital World' (1995).

[40] Thorp, J. and Rimmer, S. 'An Economic Approach to Copyright Reform' (1995) 8 IPLB 125 at p126. Ie. a "broadband transmission right". This is based on the proposal of the CCG. See Kerr, D. 'Intellectual Property Issues in a Networked Information Environmeent' (1995) 8 IPLB 77, Copyright Convergence Group Hightways to Change: Copyright in the New Communications Environment (1994).

Similarly, the US White Paper calls for a clear statutory recognition of a "transmission right". See Besek, J.'US Designs New IP Rights in Cyberspace' (1996) , http://www.ipww.com/january96/p3US.html; and "Intellectual Property and the National Information Infrastructure," The White Paper of the Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights of the Information Industry Task Force (Sept. 1995).

Section 106(3) of the US Copyright Act, the distribution right, would be amended so as to expressly grant copyright owners the right to control distribution of copies by transmission. In addition, the statutory definition of "transmit," which currently embraces only transmissions of performances and displays, would be expanded to include transmissions of copies.

[41] Thomas, J. 'Copyright in Australia's "New Communications Environment": Convergence, transmission Rights and the Internet' (1995) 6 J. Law & Info. 3 at p14- 17. One significant problem is that the right require a transmission to the public, and the notion of 'the public' is very fussy in this new medium.

[42] See Thorp, J. and Rimmer, S., op. cit.

[43] Christie, A. 'Towards a New Copyright for the New Information Age' (1995) 6 AIP 145 at p151. This is the precise point that the US green paper, Intellectual Property and the National Information Infrastructure, has been criticised as succumbing to publishers at the expense of the public. The green paper suggests that browsing a work electronically (ie. using say a World Wide Web browser) would be an infringement of copyright!

[44] Moral rights refers to: (i) the right of integrity, ie. the right to object to any distortion, mutilation or other modification which might be prejudicial to the artist's honour or reputation; (ii) the right of attribution, ie. the right to claim authorship of a work; (iii) the right to decide when a work will be published, and; (iv) the right to withdraw a work from publication.

[45] Mallam, P., op. cit. at p64.

[46] Lean, M.'Copyright and the World Wide Web'.

[47] Christie, A. 'Towards a New Copyright for the New Information Age' (1995) 6 AIP 145 at p152.

[48] See text supra.

[49] Mallam, P., op. cit. at p80.

[50]See Nawa, K.'Technical Standard and Intellectual Property Rights in Digital Documents' (1994); Lean, M.'Copyright and the World Wide Web'; Choe, J., op. cit.; Barlow; Besek, J.'US Designs New IP Rights in Cyberspace' (1996) , http://www.ipww.com/january96/p3US.html; Mallam, P., op. cit. .

[51] Choe, J. 'Interactive Multimedia: A New Technology Tests the Limits of Copyright Law' (1994) 46 Rutgers L. R. 929. at p986. Though the author did identified that there could be significant problems with this approach (at p987). Thus, to him collective remain the best alternative.

[52] Christie, A., op. cit. at p151.

To this end, the US White Paper suggests that the ability of content providers to rely on technology protection be strengthened by adding a new Chapter 12 to the Copyright Act. This new chapter would prohibit importation, manufacture or distribution of any device "the primary purpose or effect of which" is to remove or bypass encryption or copy-protection mechanisms without the authorization of the copyright owner. See Besek, J.'US Designs New IP Rights in Cyberspace' (1996)

[53] Barlow, J. 'Selling Wine Without Bottles: The Economy of Mind on the Global Net' (1994) 7 IPLB 2.

[54] 'Copyright and Multimedia: Is the Ship Sinking?'.

[55] Fleischmann, E. 'Impact of Digital Technology on Copyright Law' (1988) 23 New Eng. L. R. 45 at p64.

[56] No such technology exist at the moment. See Nawa, K.'Technical Standard and Intellectual Property Rights in Digital Documents' (1994) , http://www.hle.niigata-u.ac.jp/members/teachers/K-Nawa/law-in-cyberspace/FIDC.html

[57] Chang, C., Herskowitz, S. and Lee, S.'Intellectual Property in the Information Age'.

[58] Choe, J., op. cit. at p979, and p988; Christie, A. 'Towards a New Copyright for the New Information Age' (1995) 6 AIP 145 at p150- 151; and Meeker, H., op. cit. at p389.

[59] This is to be distinguished from compulsory licensing, which is often used as a last resort. See Meeker, H. 'Multimedia and Copyright' (1994) 20 Rutgers Comp. L. J. 375 at p410. The US White Paper rejects additional compulsory licensing.

[60] Besek, J.'US Designs New IP Rights in Cyberspace' (1996).

[61] In the EC, there are hundreds of thousands of archives available. There are currently receiving little uses because of the uncertainties surrounding the status of the content providers' right. See Rumphorst, W. 'Fine-tuning Copyright for the Information Society' (1996) 18 EIPR 79.

[62] This approach is consistent with the criteria/ framework noted in Meeker, H., op. cit. at p391 suitable for collective administration.

[63] Meeker, H., op. cit. at p391

[64] Fleischmann, E. 'Impact of Digital Technology on Copyright Law' (1988) 23 New Eng. L. R. 45 at p65; Goldberg, J., op. cit.

[65] Goldberg, J., op. cit. at p961, footnote 309.

[66] Elkin-Koren, N. 'Copyright Law and Social Dialogue on the Information Superhighway: The Case Against Copyright Liability of Bulletin Board Operators' (1995) 13 Cardozo L. J. 346 at p410.

[67] Thomas, J. 'Copyright in Australia's "New Communications Environment": Convergence, transmission Rights and the Internet' (1995) 6 J. Law & Info. 3 at p18. The author went on to suggest perhaps a sui generis regimes (as with circuit layouts) may be more appropriate.

[68] Rumphorst, W. 'Fine-tuning Copyright for the Information Society' (1996) 18 EIPR 79.at p81. See text supra at p

[69] See text supra.

[70] See text supra.

[71] Eg. contribution to newsgroup, opinions, graphics on people's WWW pages.

[72] Though the chance that they would actively exercise their rights should be rare under this scheme, since presumably those who are interested in protecting their rights would opt-in.

[73] But this exception should not be phrased too broadly to prevent it serving as a possible loopholes for exploitation. See footnote 29 supra.

[74] See text supra.

[75] Some author think copyright is dead in this medium. See Griesdorf, W. 'The Laugh of Hypertext' (1994) 9 IPJ 1.

[76] See textsupra