Questions around IPR and Copyright Management are extremely important for those who work in the so called Cyberspace. That's why we start to publish a series of articles of professor of law Julie E. Cohen around these topics.

The series is opened by the article "A Right to Read Anonymously: A Closer Look at "Copyright Management" In Cyberspace" (1996). In spite of the date of the article is rather bygone, we suppose the content is still useful and valuable. So, we decided it will be a good start.

In abstract the author said: "It has become commonplace to say that we have entered the age of information. The words conjure up images of a reader's paradise ~ an era of limitless access to information resources and unlimited interpersonal communication. In truth, however, the new information age is turning out to be as much an age of information about readers as an age of information for readers. The same technologies that have made vast amounts of information accessible in digital form are enabling information providers to amass an unprecedented wealth of data about who their customers are and what they like to read. In the new age of digitally transmitted information, the simple, formerly anonymous acts of reading, listening, and viewing ~ scanning an advertisement or a short news item, browsing through an online novel or a collection of video clips ~ can be made to speak volumes, including, quite possibly, information that the reader would prefer not to share. This Article focuses specifically on digital monitoring of individual reading habits for purposes of so-called "copyright management" in cyberspace, and evaluates the import of this monitoring for traditional notions of freedom of thought and expression."

You can access the whole article on the SSRN web-site and make your comments below.

About the author

Julie E. Cohen
Professor of Law in Georgetown University Law Center

Professor Cohen teaches and writes about intellectual property law and data privacy law, with particular focus on the design of digital information networks and on the intersection of copyright, privacy, and communicative freedom in cyberspace. She is co-author of Copyright in a Global Information Economy (Aspen Law & Business 2002), and is a member of the Advisory Boards of the Electronic Privacy Information Center and Public Knowledge. Following law school, Professor Cohen clerked for the Honorable Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and then practiced with the San Francisco firm of McCutchen, Doyle, Brown & Enersen, where she specialized in intellectual property litigation. Prior to joining the Law Center Faculty in 1999, Professor Cohen was Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

You can contact the author via the whole article on the SSRN web-site.