III/diversities of the
solutions
New fashion of communication that Internet introduces with
for essential characteristic an access to information largely facilitated. It
is freed from the constraints of distances and time, from the borders, and
offers to all an equal access to the information which constitutes its
richness.
Right of the intellectual property, which aims at regulating
creation and the transmission of works of the spirit must thus be put in
agreement with these new facilities. It rests in the same way with the
technique to facilitate the application of the already existing rules, which,
one saw it, can in the majority of the cases apply. However, the transborder
character of the network implies an international co-operation, not only
states, but also of the users, who must lead to a harmonization of the
rules.
The conciliation between the facility of communication
offered by the network and the principles of the intellectual property will
have to thus be done by the means of an international co-operation.
A) The conciliation enters the facility
of communication and the principles of the intellectual property.
The new facilities of communication offered by the network
cause or are likely to cause many infringements of the right of the
intellectual property, but, the mother of all networks offers also very
important cultural opportunities. It thus appears desirable to
reconcile the principles of the freedom of information and the freedom of
expression, which are at the base of the development of Internet, with the
principles of the right of the intellectual property, and in particular the
protection of the authors. The network must thus adapt to the right,
and the right must adapt to the network.
1) The network must adapt to
the right
As we already evoked, the digitalization of information and
the disappearance of the material support have as a consequence a new facility
of circulation, modification, garbling the data which is offered to all.
Thus, on the one hand, it can be easily copied or modified, which
involves many potential infringements of the royalty, concerning the respect of
the integrity of work, but also the reproduction right. In addition,
the development of the telecommuting and the data transmissions between the
various sites of companies involves a considerable increase in the theft risk
of data and thus of attacks to the intellectual property. Thus, of many
companies use computers connected to the network within the framework of their
programmes of Research and development or design of new products, which can
lead to litigations concerning the patent right and more particularly the
substantive patent law.
For example, the American firm Boeing, designed its last plane
starting from several engineering and design departments distant several
thousands of kilometers and connected to each other by the network.
To encourage the development of the economic
activities, by the protection of the intellectual property, the network must
thus offer technical solutions of safety concerning the transmission and the
information storage, but also the authentification of the documents.
One can think, for example, with the use of cryptography RSA (Rivest
Shamir Adleman) so named asymmetrical cryptography. This one functions
with two keys : a key public and a key private.
Both are used for encoding, and the private key is used to decipher.
This system as well makes it possible to make safe the data (like other
systems of encoding), but also to authenticate the documents, possibly thanks
to the contest of waiters of public keys, by creating a true electronic
signature. However, cryptography is not yet completely liberalized.
It appears also desirable to preserve a certain freedom of
communication. The network, by the technological projection that it
brings, must thus also force the right to adapt.
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