Copyright User Rights
Contracts and the Erosion of Property
Pascale Chapdelaine
Reviews and Awards
"Copyright User Rights contribution to the literature on copyright users' rights. It offers thoughtful examination of the problems that arise at the interface of competing claims by owners and users in an environment of near-constant innovation in technology and business practices; it also suggests solutions, proposing an ambitious set of reforms that is nevertheless sensitive to the legitimate concerns and interests of all stakeholders, owners and users among them, identifying pragmatic steps that can be taken to address the various concerns." -- Bob Tarantinoa, Intellectual Property Journal
"Chapdelaine's approach provides for a deeper and novel account of how to understand copyright user rights. It also provides technological disruptors, librarians, and consumers a detailed intellectual roadmap with which to graph new trails for the coming century." -- Olivier Charbonneau, The Canadian Bar Review
"This careful and systematic analysis of user rights could not have been published at a better time. Grounded in property, contract and consumer laws, it provides an insightful, well-reasoned and comprehensive multijurisdictional perspective. Regardless of where you stand on the copyright reform debate, this book will provoke you to rethink your position." - Peter K. Yu, Professor of Law and Director, Center for Law and Intellectual Property, Texas A&M University School of Law
"In this timely and essential book, Pascale Chapdelaine succeeds in presenting the rights of the users, not in isolation, but through a multiple perspective, as a public getting access to works, as owners of a copy, as well as consumers of a service. Not being deluded by the increasing blurring border between tangibles and intangibles as converging ways of getting access to creative content, she provides the keys to comprehend the ongoing dematerialisation of cultural products and its related set of issues, from restraining user licences and digital rights management to digital exhaustion." - Séverine Dusollier, Professor, Law School, SciencesPo Paris
"What accounts for today's switch in talk from authors' rights to public rights of access and use? Dr Pascale Chapdelaine brilliantly analyses the ins and outs of the phenomenon and their implications for copyright law and commerce. A must-read for anyone interested in the struggle between big data and the public in the internet era." - David Vaver, Emeritus Professor of Intellectual Property & Information Technology Law, University of Oxford; Professor of Intellectual Property Law, Osgoode Hall Law School, Toronto
"No longer an heretical idea, user rights in copyright law has been increasingly endorsed by copyright scholars. But no consensus has yet emerged for its normative justification. Pascale Chapdelaine's new book offers a novel theory to explain why users of digital copies of copyrighted works have property-based rights to make a wider array of uses of their copies than many copyright professionals would readily admit. Users don't lose those rights merely because rights holders characterize transactions as licenses or bundle the content in technical protections measures. This book paves the way for future freedoms that users deserve to be respected." - Professor Pamela Samuelson, Berkeley Law, University of California
