Intellectual Property and Consumer Law

Andrea Stazi, Università LUISS Guido Carli - Rome
Davide Mula, European University of Rome

Abstract

Knowledge economy is led by - and leads, at the same time - a sudden and never-ending acceleration of the technological growth and the consequent development of means of social and business relationships. In this framework, the regulation of the suppliers’ right of access to the network and the consumers/users’ right of access to digital works constitutes the main challenge that lawmakers and competent authorities shall undertake. As specifically concerns the business relations between suppliers and consumers, while the former aim at providing goods and services without limits and receiving fair prices for them, the latter look forward to participating freely in business and social relationships - without risks of violations of their fundamental rights - and accessing to digital services and goods through different media. Therefore, all the market players ask for new means of protection that, reconciling their different needs, allow a fair development of business and social relationships. In this context, the chapter analyzes, under a comparative perspective, how intellectual property law and consumer law interact in the new business environment of knowledge economy. At the beginning, the chapter focuses on the concepts of consumer and fair user. Then, it proceeds to analyze the relevant doctrine and case law approach in relation to the issues of remote storage, peer to peer, digital rights management, thus highlighting the contents and limits of consumer/user rights in the above-mentioned framework.