Edward Elgar Publishing Copyright and Information Privacy: Conflicting Rights in Balance

Federica Giovanella examines the on-going conflict between copyright and informational privacy rights within the judicial system in this timely and intriguing book. Adopting a comparative approach focusing on the United States, Canada and Italy, Dr Giovanella skilfully explores the strategies through which judges solve conflicts between Internet users’ data protection and copyright holders’ enforceable rights. Using research centred on a selection of lawsuits in which copyright holders attempted to enforce their rights against Internet users suspected of illegal file-sharing, this book analyses the cases and regulatory frameworks concerning both privacy and copyright. Copyright and Information Privacy demonstrates that these decisions were ultimately the by-products of different policy conceptions of the two conflicting rights. Whilst providing a comprehensive analysis of the conflict between copyright and data protection, this book also stimulates the debate surrounding the role that judges have in balancing conflicting rights, and examines their reasoning in resolving such conflict, taking into consideration the process of conceptual balancing. Perceptive and contemporary in topic, this book will be beneficial to both scholars and students of intellectual property, privacy and comparative law. Review 'Federica Giovanella's book represents a fascinating and unusual analysis of the way judges balance rights. Her comparative analysis and her thorough investigation of copyright and data protection law and of their conflicts sheds new light on balancing and on the role that judges play in legal systems.'--Giovanni Sartor, European University Institute, Italy 'In Copyright and Information Privacy: Conflicting Rights in Balance, Federica Giovanella takes us through the regulation of file-sharing in the United States, Canada and Italy to examine its impact on the privacy rights of internet users. More specifically, Giovanella looks at the jurisprudence framing requests filed by right holders against internet service providers (ISPs) for the disclosure of the identity of internet users for the purpose of enforcement. The book will be useful to both students and academics of IP, as it pulls together different strands in the relevant scholarship discussed.'--IPKat 'In a world where technological development allows new forms of copyright infringement and privacy violations, what is the basis of decisions taken by lower courts when they find themselves facing the conflict between privacy and copyright? In this elegantly written book Federica Giovanella takes us on a fascinating journey in different countries to explain how the conception of privacy and copyright affects judicial decision-making.'--Cédric Manara, EDHEC Business School, France About the Author Federica Giovanella, Universita Degli Studi Di Udine, Italy