Mezei and Harkai (2022)
Contents
Source Details
| Mezei and Harkai (2022) | |
| Title: | End-User Flexibilities in Digital Copyright Law – An Empirical Analysis of End-user License Agreements |
| Author(s): | Mezei, P., Harkai, I. |
| Year: | 2022 |
| Citation: | Mezei, P. Harkai, I. (2022). End-User Flexibilities in Digital Copyright Law – An Empirical Analysis of End-user License Agreements. Interactive Entertainment Law Review, 5(1), p. 2-21. |
| Link(s): | Definitive , Open Access |
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| About the Data | |
| Data Description: | Part of the study adopts an empirical methodology, since it addresses the systematic and qualitative analysis of EULAs. In particular, seventeen platforms have been selected and included in four categories. After the content analysis of EULAs by addressing different variables that concern related user flexibilities, each of the category has been assigned a “user-flexibility index” that goes from 1 (least flexible) to 5 (most flexible). |
| Data Type: | Primary data |
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| Cross Country Study?: | No |
| Comparative Study?: | Yes |
| Literature review?: | No |
| Government or policy study?: | No |
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Abstract
“In the platform age, copyright-protected contents are primarily disseminated over the internet. This model poses various challenges to the copyright regime that was mainly designed in and for the analog age. One of these challenges is related to the fair balance between the interests of rightsholders and other members of society. Copyright norms try to guarantee this balance by granting a high level of protection for rightsholders and preserving some flexibility for end-users. Regulation by platforms’ end-user license agreements might also be relevant to preserve that balance. The present paper focused on how these private norms allow for or diminish the exercise of user flexibilities. We collected, analyzed, and compared seventeen private ordering practices of service providers grouped in four main categories. Our empirical examination demonstrated that intermediaries offer substantive flexibilities for their consumers, on the one hand, and they meaningfully limit the possibilities and decrease the expectations of end-users by restricting certain uses and providing limited access to contents, on the other hand. We measured the flexibility of the selected platforms, and we provided for the state of the art of platform flexibilities in the period preceding the implementation deadline of the EU’s CDSM Directive”.
Main Results of the Study
With regard to end-user license agreements (EULAs) in platforms classified as “streaming with hosting service”, since they provide access at the same time to licensed content and UGC, they are quite flexible and encompass broader license rights. And this leads also to less technological restrictions. By contrast, the possibility of family sharing and other transfer of rights is quite limited. The user-flexibility index has an overall score of 3.75. For EULAs of platforms without (or with limited) hosting service, since they mostly provide licensed content on-demand, they show less flexibility and have much more restricting conditions in the EULAs. Therefore, the user-flexibility index is only 2.63. In the context of online marketplaces, these platforms are not keen to provide flexible access to users, because they give priority to third-party content that is licensed on the platform by the creator. Moreover, these platforms refer to dissemination for sale, transfer or purchase, but these aspects are not included in the right of distribution and exhaustion. All this scenario (and other factors) lead to a user-flexibility index of 2.9. Last category, the one of social media, presents the broadest and most flexible possibilities for users, since these platforms rely massively on user content. However, the options become quite limited, when the platforms strictly code the functionality of their websites. Thus, the overall user-flexibility index of 3.86 is definitely higher than the other categories, but not consistently.
Policy Implications as Stated By Author
Although the authors do not state any policy implications in the study, they expect that the platforms might update their terms and conditions according to a “EU effect” after the implementation of Article 17 of the CDSM Directive.
Coverage of Study
Datasets
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