A Universal Copyright Fund: A New Way to Bridge the Copyright Divide

世界著作權基金:縮短著作權差距的新方法

日漸數位化的作品和保護這些作品的科技設備及網路的普遍使用,加深了網路資源豐富與貧乏國家間的差距。本文建議從電信世界如何在每戶家庭可負擔的費用下提供全球服務的經驗,嚐試探討出如何縮小著作權不均等差距的方法。本文共有三個部份。第一部分檢驗目前強制授權機制在過去與未來的挫敗之處,此機制在上個世紀時已在國際著作權協議下運作。其次,本文的第二部份將研究電信的全球服務協議。在第三部份,本文則設想一個世界著作權基金以供全世界社群參考。

The ever-increasing digitization of works, along with the deployment of technical measures to protect such works and the expansive use of the Internet, further exacerbate the divide between the IP-rich and IP-poor countries in their ability to benefit from such works. It is suggested by this paper that to borrow from experiences on how the telecommunications world provides universal service to each and every household at affordable prices, and to endeavor to shed some new light on how the copyright divide can be narrowed. It is structured in three parts. The first part will examine the past and future failure of the current compulsory licensing scheme which was worked out in the last century in the international copyright treaties, followed by a study of the universal services arrangement in telecommunications in the second part. The third part will envisage a universal copyright fund for the world community to consider.