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Turning specifically to the discussion of economic rights, this chapter shows how the Court’s application of certain standards discussed in Chapter 2 has resulted in common approaches—and overall broad scope—of the economic rights harmonized by the InfoSoc Directive, these being the rights of reproduction, communication/making available to the public, and distribution. This chapter also contains a discussion of the de facto harmonization of the originality requirement at the EU level and the understanding of ‘work’ under the InfoSoc Directive. With regard to the right of distribution, its exhaustion—especially following the first lawful sale copies in digital format (digital exhaustion)—is also discussed.

This chapter examines the legality of the parody exception in light of international treaties and domestic copyright laws. More specifically, it considers whether the parody exception may only be introduced into national copyright law if it satisfies the three-step test enshrined in international treaties. The chapter first traces the history and evolution of copyright law before explaining whether copyright law requires a specific parody exception and why a specific parody exception rectifies the balance between right-holders, users, and subsequent authors. It then discusses the three-step test, first incorporated into the Berne Convention to protect the ‘right of reproduction’, and its adoption in European Union texts and national legislations. It also outlines the differing interpretations of the three-step test and concludes with an analysis of whether the current parody exceptions in each of the five jurisdictions (France, Australia, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom) comply with this test.

This chapter deals with indexing. Indexing is typically engaged in by internet service providers of different kinds, such as search engines, content aggregators, and online content sharing platforms, including social media. Indexing is the background process that tries to achieve greater accessibility of the content on the internet. However, this process may engage the right of reproduction and the right of communication to the public, and therefore, must be considered separately. Based on the indexing capabilities and to facilitate deeper analysis, this chapter classifies the providers into search engines, content sharing platforms, news aggregators and other content aggregators. The chapter explains how courts have tried to deal with this issue and argues for a greater role of implied licences to address the issues of copyright infringement. While indexing of content that is placed on the internet by or with the copyright owner’s consent can benefit from consent-based implied licence, indexing of the content that is placed on the internet without the copyright owner’s consent may benefit from a policy-based implied licence, saving them from liability for indexing infringing content under certain circumstances.