The Changing Nature of Authorship: Why Copyright Law Must Focus on the Increased Role of Technology

摘要

This article will outline how digital technology is changing the nature of authorship.Authorship has been consistently shaped and formed by the physical world around it.Digital technology is part of this change.However,the law has not fully acknowledged the changing nature of authorship under digital technology.The law has focused on the ability of code easily to copy copyrighted works,but it has not focused on the ability of code to restrict certain uses of works.The combination of technological change and the current nature of the law have led to the undesirable situation where particular categories of authors (such as certain software coders) enjoy a beneficial position under the current legal regime,to the detriment of other categories (such as literary authors).Thus,a literary author could be constrained by software Digital Rights Mechanisms.This situation has not been explicitly addressed by the courts or by the legislatures.This article highlights that this is something that the current legal regimes should be aware of if they are not to skew protection in favour of certain groups of authors,thereby inhibiting other groups of authors.