Browsing by Author "Wolz, Johannes"

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Is the Amended Google Books Settlement an Improvement for Copyright Owners Outside of the United States
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2010) Wolz, Johannes
Topic of this paper is the Google Books Settlement. It discusses the copyright issues of copyright owners outside the United States concerning this settlement and concerning the amended settlement through using the examples of Germany and New Zealand. It shows that the amended agreement provides significant disadvantages for foreign rights holders. The amended settlement agreement (ASA) is in some points even worse for foreign copyright holders compared to the original settlement as it creates legal uncertainty. The scope of application of the ASA is linked to the place of publication of books. However, the agreement does not provide a sufficient definition of the place of publication and it is hard to know whether a book has been registered with the United States Copyright Office, especially for foreign rights holders. Finally, the paper criticises that both the original and the amended agreement do not represent foreign authors properly. As a result, the paper concludes that the ASA violates different international treaties such as the TRIPS and the Berne Convention. Compared to the original agreement, the ASA is a burden especially for foreign rights holders
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Radio Frequency Identification (RFID): Is There a Risk for Privacy
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2010) Wolz, Johannes
The paper compares the legal situation of RFID in New Zealand, Germany and the United States. New Zealand and Germany have comprehensive privacy laws that are applicable to RFID. Those laws provide a generally high standard of privacy although RFID is not regulated explicitly. In the United States there is no such general privacy law and the Constitution is the only law that provides for privacy at federal level. However, there is legislation in some states of the United States that regulates RFID explicitly. The conclusion of the paper shows that general privacy protection is preferable compared with specific regulation, because such specific regulation may interfere with the development of RFID technology. The paper also describes briefly recommendations of the European Commission and the OECD on RFID. Both recommendations suggest self-regulation by the economy instead of governmental regulation in order to support the further development of RFID technology.