Direito autoral na era digital: impactos, controvérsias e possíveis soluções

Abstract

The progress of mankind has always depended on the creative capacity of man. In the beginning of civilization, knowledge was transmitted orally, from person to person, and occasionally was lost. Technology, regarded as new tools and gadgets, has allowed the democratization of knowledge. Thus, literary works experienced a huge revolution, with the invention of typography by Gutenberg; later, they faced the menace of photocopiers, and, now, audiobooks (spoken-word works) and eBooks (books available for download on the Internet) coexist with printed works. Songs have come from live sessions to LP, then to cassette tapes until they came to be listened to on CD and, nowadays, downloaded from the Internet in MP3 format. This growing technological evolution has provided the basis for the rise of a new society, the information society . We are living the revolution of computers, Internet, and mass media. We term this scene digital era , i.e., the society marked by the digital revolution and widespread information sharing, whose fundamental tools are the computer and the means of communication. In this scene, evidenced by the turning of atoms in bits, this study presents reflections on the impact of the Internet on copyrights. Through facts, technical data, and juridical aspects, we try to trace a panorama of our times, facing the main questions concerned with this theme coming from the premise that considering copyrights on the Internet is essential not only for their survival, but mainly for incentivating creators to create more and more, contributing for the growing development of our society