RIGHTS MANAGEMENT

INFORMATION

What 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.

Cont
The 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?
Label their work
Rightholders
Let users identify
the works and their
conditions of use
RMI

Consumer

Digital watermarks
give consumers
confidence in the
authencity of the
source of a work or
phonogram, and
certainty as to the
conditions for its
use

a) 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 owner

An 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 Treaty
Obligations concerning Rights Management Information
1) 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

implemented
Most 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 RMI
Treaties 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 available

ii) Protection against manipulation

of RMI
Treaties
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
RMI

iii) Protection against

dissemination of copies in which
RMI has been manipulated
To 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 copies

iv) 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.

Cont
Test for dissemination without authorization
of content where RMI has been manipulated
or removed :
i) Whether the person knew that RMI has
been manipulated or removed; and
ii)

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

v) Prohibition of watermark
washing devices
There 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.

MALAYSI
A

Section 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:
(a)the removal or alteration of any electronic rights
management information without authority;
(b)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
ZEALAND

Amendment to the New Zealand

Copyright Act
Provides a protection for copyright
information (CMI), the equivalent of RMI

management

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
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.
(1)

(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,

Analysis
No distinction between digital and
analogue content.

JAPAN

 The Japanese definition of RMI

generally follows the WIPO treaties,
HOWEVER, there is some specificity
that is not found in other
international agreements

Article 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:

Cont
(a)information which specifies works, etc.,
owners of copyright, etc. and other
matters specified by Cabinet Order;
(b)information relating to manners and
conditions of the exploitation in case
where the exploitation of works, etc. is
authorized;
(c)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
AMERICA

Digital Millennium Copyright Act

Section 1202
limited firepower in the moral rights
arsenal
while 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

Cont
section 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 1202

 American caselaw has narrowed

down RMI / CMI to 3 questions :
i.

what
is
copyright
management
information?
ii. where must copyright management
information appear in order to be
protected?
iii. 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 CMI
1202(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.

Cont
While 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 case

The 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

Cont
Thus, 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