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RIGHTS MANAGEMENT INFORMATIONWhat is rights management information?Rights management information (RMI) is the basis for new licensing systems, and can certify the integrity and authenticity of works and phonograms.

Combined with other technology, they also prove to be a powerful tool against copyright infringements. The WIPO Treaties require effective legal protection of RMI.information that identifies content protected by copyright or related rights, the rights owners in such content and the terms and conditions of use associated with it.

often takes the form of an electronic watermark placed in protected content.

In copyright terms, RMI frequently serves as a means of compliance with the moral right of attribution, in that it identifies the author and performer of a work.ContThe WIPO Treaties protect all such RMI: information about works, phonograms and performances, as well as the identification of authors, phonogram producers, performers or other rights owners.

Protection also extends to information about terms and conditions of use of content.

WHY IS THIS RIGHT IMPORTANT?Rightholders It is important for rightholders to label their work particularly in the digital environment because activities move quickly and leave few or no residual traces

Works that appear in a digital form can easily be changed, mutilated, misappropriated, reproduced and put into distribution channels without the consent of the rights ownerAn analogy In the analogue world, information found on the copy, booklet or cover of a copyright product helps right owners track and prove illegal activity.

In a similar vein, RMI fulfils this function in the electronic environment.b) Consumers Manipulation of RMI can lead consumers to draw wrong conclusions about permitted uses, and thus can have an economic effect equivalent to common fraud

As with all other technological protection methods, the integrity of RMI is vulnerable to attack.

Therefore, it relies on legal protection in order to prevent deliberate manipulation and distortion.In order to enable confidence in the authenticity of works, and the integrity of information about the identity of rights owners and the conditions of use, it is essential to protect RMI itself and to prevent the distribution of copies where such information has been removed or manipulated.Article 19 of the WIPO Performances and Phonograms TreatyObligations concerning Rights Management Information

Contracting Parties shall provide adequate and effective legal remedies against any person knowingly performing any of the following acts knowing, or with respect to civil remedies having reasonable grounds to know, that it will induce, enable, facilitate or conceal an infringement of any right covered by this Treaty: (i) to remove or alter any electronic rights management information without authority; (ii) to distribute, import for distribution, broadcast, communicate or make available to the public, without authority, performances, copies of fixed performances or phonograms knowing that electronic rights management information has been removed or altered without authority.

(2) As used in this Article, rights management information means information which identifies the performer, the performance of the performer, the producer of the phonogram, the phonogram, the owner of any right in the performance or phonogram, or information about the terms and conditions of use of the performance or phonogram, and any numbers or codes that represent such information, when any of these items of information is attached to a copy of a fixed performance or a phonogram or appears in connection with the communication or making available of a fixed performance or a phonogram to the public.

Notable features in the WPPT The knowledge requirement.

Treaty definitions do not restrict RMI to electronic information, though the infringement parts of the articles are aimed at electronic RMI.How should RMI be implementedMost countries are finding that their copyright laws require some modernizing to deal with the legal protection of RMI

There are several elements that governments and right holders have found crucial to ensure the effective legal protection of RMI

i) Definition of RMITreaties provide a clear and useful definition

Definition should include

a) the required categories of protected information;

b) should also indicate that the information must be attached to a work, a fixation of a performance or a phonogram or must appear in connection with any intangible type of use including the communication to the public, broadcasting or making available14ii) Protection against manipulation of RMITreaties explicitly mention the unauthorised removal and alteration of RMI (Art. 19 (1)(i) WPPT)

Unauthorised addition of information has the equivalent effect of manipulation of RMI

This can mislead users and businesses as to permitted uses and discourage the use of RMIiii) Protection against dissemination of copies in which RMI has been manipulatedTo enable right owners to take such copies out of circulation and prevent further harm, it is important to provide a complete list of prohibited activities including distribution, export, import for distribution, broadcasting, communication to the public and the making available to the public of such copiesiv) Knowledge requirement regarding the impact of the activity on copyright infringement Test for removal or alteration of RMI without authorization :

whether the person knew or in the case of civil proceedings had reasonable grounds to know, that such manipulation would induce, enable, facilitate or conceal infringement of copyright or neighboring rights.ContTest for dissemination without authorization of content where RMI has been manipulated or removed :

Whether the person knew that RMI has been manipulated or removed; and

whether the person knew or in the case of civil proceedings had reasonable grounds to know, that the dissemination of content without RMI would induce, enable, facilitate or conceal an infringement.v) Prohibition of watermark washing devicesThere is a substantial danger that devices that systematically wash out watermarks while leaving the content unchanged will undermine the confidence of rights owners and legitimate users, which is essential to the use of RMI in the first place.MALAYSIASection 39 (4) & (5) of the Copyright Act 1987(4) Copyright is infringed by any person who knowingly performs any of the following acts knowing or having reasonable grounds to know that it will induce, enable, facilitate or conceal an infringement of any right under this Act:

the removal or alteration of any electronic rights management information without authority; the distribution, importation for distribution or communication to the public, without authority, of works or copies of works knowing that electronic rights management information has been removed or altered without authority.Cont(5) For the purpose of subsection (4) and section 41, rights management information means information which identifies the works, the author of the work, the owner of any right in the work, or information about the terms and conditions of use of the work, any numbers or codes that represent such information, when any of these items of information is attached to a copy of a work or appears in connection with the communication of a work to the public.NEW ZEALANDAmendment to the New Zealand Copyright ActProvides a protection for copyright management information (CMI), the equivalent of RMI

Section 226F defines CMI as :

information attached to, or embodied in, a copy of a work that

(a)identifies the work, and its author or copyright owner; or

(b)identifies or indicates some or all of the terms and conditions for using the work, or indicates that the use of the work is subject to terms and conditions.

Section 226H(1) A person (A) must not, in the course of business, make, import, sell, let for hire, offer or expose for sale or hire, or advertise for sale or hire, a copy of a work if any copyright management information attached to, or embodied in, the copy has been removed or modified without the authority of the copyright owner or the exclusive licensee.

(2)However, subsection (1) does not apply if

(a)A has the authority of the copyright owner or the exclusive licensee to remove or modify the copyright management information; or

(b)A does not know, and has no reason to believe, that the removal or modification will induce, enable, facilitate, or conceal an infringement of the copyright in the work; or

(c)A does not know, and has no reason to believe, that any copyright management information attached to, or embodied in, the copy has been removed or modified without the authority of the copyright owner or the exclusive licensee.

Analysis No distinction between digital and analogue content.JAPANThe Japanese definition of RMI generally follows the WIPO treaties, HOWEVER, there is some specificity that is not found in other international agreementsArticle 2 (xxi)information concerning moral rights or copyright or rights which falls within any of the following (a), (b) and (c) and which is recorded on a memory or transmitted by electromagnetic means together with works, performances, phonograms, or sounds or images of broadcasts or wire diffusions, excluding such information as not used for knowing how works, etc. are exploited , for conducting business relating to the authorization to exploit works, etc. and for other management of copyright, etc. by computer:

Continformation which specifies works, etc., owners of copyright, etc. and other matters specified by Cabinet Order;information relating to manners and conditions of the exploitation in case where the exploitation of works, etc. is authorized;information which enables to specify matters mentioned in (a) or (b) above in comparison with other information;Analysis Japanese definition of RMI restricts it to electronic versions.

Notable in the Japanese legislation is the reference to moral rights and copyright, specifically linking them to RMI. THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICADigital Millennium Copyright Act

Section 1202limited firepower in the moral rights arsenalwhile the authors name can be an element of statutorily protected copyright management information (CMI), the rightholder has no obligation to include the authors name in the first place (though if it is included, it might be protected against removal)Contsection 1202 prohibits removals or alterations of CMI that facilitate copyright infringement, but there is no right under copyright to authorship attribution; thus, removal of the authors name cannot of itself violate section 1202American caselaw has narrowed down RMI / CMI to 3 questions :

what is copyright management information?where must copyright management information appear in order to be protected?what level of knowledge or intent violates section 1202? What is copyright management information?

courts are divided over whether only identifying information that is part of an automated copyright protection or management system can be deemed CMI protected under 1202. if 1202s application is confined to automated systems, authors will have no claim if their names are removed from non digitally-delivered hardcopies. This ignores the text of 1202, which plainly envisions a broad application for CMI1202(c)(2) defines CMI as any of the following information including in digital form,. . . . The specification of including in digital form clearly means that information not in digital form is also covered.Where must copyright management information appear in order to be protected?

some courts have interpreted in connection with to require that the identifying information be embedded in the copy or phono record of the work others have rejected such a narrow view. the language of the statute does not command incorporation of the CMI in the copy of the work: conveyed in connection with does not mean on copies, and if a performance of a work is involved, embedding may not be possible. If the object of the transaction is a display of an artwork, its creator may not wish to embed visually perceptible CMI in the image. If the statute aims to provide reliable information regarding the identity of the work, of its author, and of the terms and conditions of its exploitation, it would seem that providing the information in ways that do not imperil the integrity of the work could still meet Congress objectives. Personal Keepsakes, Inc. v. Personalizationmall.com Inc.if a general copyright notice appears on an entirely different webpage than the work at issue, then that CMI is not conveyed with the work and no claim will lie under the DMCA.

the plaintiff alleged that the defendant copied poems from plaintiffs website and displayed them on the defendants own site. The plaintiff argued that the defendant had, by placing copyright notices on the parts of its own site that contained the allegedly infringing poems , supplied false CMI in violation of 1202. ContWhile the court held that plaintiffs assertion that defendants placement of a copyright notice directly within the title of one of the allegedly copied poems stated a claim for relief under the DMCA, it also ruled that the more remote location of a copyright notice relative to the other allegedly copied poems did not convey the CMI with the other alleged infringements.

In requiring that the false CMI be conveyed with the infringing works, the court seems to be reading conveyed in connection with out of the statute. Analysis of the caseThe former, incomplete, reading suggests the CMI must be amalgamated with the work; the latter leaves room for more distant placement, although the more clicks required to access the CMI, the less likely a court may be to find even a connection between the work and its conveyance to the end user.

What level of knowledge or intent violates section 1202?

Under 1202(b), the wrongful act is not simply removing the attribution or distributing or publicly performing or displaying the work without the attribution.

The statute also requires that those who distribute, perform or display the work (1) have known that the attribution was removed or altered without the copyright owners authorization, and (2) that those who remove or alter the attribution, or who distribute or perform works whose attribution has been removed or altered, do so knowing, or . . . having reasonable grounds to know that it will induce, enable, facilitate, or conceal an infringement of any right under this title.ContThus, even intentional removal or alteration of authorship attribution is not unlawful if the copyright owner cannot show that the person who removed or altered the information knew that the removal would encourage or facilitate copyright infringement.CONCLUSION