Browsing and Streaming

Abstract

This chapter explores the application of implied licences to browsing as an activity on the internet. In this process, in addition to temporary copies of the content made on screen and in transmission, copies are made in the buffer of the computer in order to facilitate uninterrupted access, even if the content is not downloaded. If each copy made in this process needs permission from the copyright owner, then it would significantly impede the functioning of the internet. If browsing is not authorised, it would make infringers out of millions of users for simply viewing websites. The UK’s response has been to subsume this process into the statutory exception under section 28A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, which was transposed from Article 5(1) of the EU Infosoc Directive. This provision, however, suffers from inadequacies owing to certain inherent inflexibilities particularly apparent in relation to browsing of infringing content. This chaper argues that implied licence can offer a more flexible and dependable avenue to resolve the temporary copying issue, rather than the statutory exeption.