Copyright Exhaustion Rationales and Used Software: A Law and Economics Approach to Oracle v. UsedSoft

This article aims to provide courts and policymakers with an analytical framework that, building upon the traditional rationales of IP exhaustion doctrine, identifies factors which advocate for a modulation or flexibilization of the role of exhaustion in copyright law. Factors include (i) the personal features of acquirers of copies of copyrighted works, distinguishing between consumers and commercial users; (ii) whether post-sale restrictions have been adequately communicated to acquirers and have been agreed in the contract or license; (iii) the degree of complexity of the acquired goods and their prospects of productive uses and interoperability; (iv) the role of other exclusive rights in providing rightholders with indirect control over uses of the copies in the aftermarket; (v) the impact of post-sale restraints in preventing opportunism in long-term contracts and in reducing deadweight losses created by IP pricing; and (vi) the temporal scope of post-sale restraints. After setting out this analytical framework, the ECJ Judgement in Oracle v. UsedSoft is discussed.

Software Engineering and eLearning: The MuSofT Project

eLearning supports the education in certain disciplines. Here, we report about novel eLearning concepts, techniques, and tools to support education in Software Engineering, a subdiscipline of computer science. We call this "Software Engineering eLearning". On the other side, software support is a substantial prerequisite for eLearning in any discipline. Thus, Software Engineering techniques have to be applied to develop and maintain those software systems. We call this "eLearning Software Engineering". Both aspects have been investigated in a large joint, BMBF-funded research project, termed MuSofT (Multimedia in Software Engineering). The main results are summarized in this paper.

eLEARNING - A CHANCE FOR SMALL AND MEDIUM SIZED ENTERPRISES

eLearning through its flexibility and facility of access is seen as a major enabler of lifelong learning (LLL), as a catalyst of change and a chance for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to improve their business and to integrate into European market. But so far the eLearning in the context of vocational educational training has been mainly adopted by large enterprises, while only little activity can be observed in SMEs. The question arises what the chances and challenges for SMEs are and what is the experience with its usage. In this paper after a presentation of key issues in eLearning chances and challenges of eLearning for SMEs are discussed and experiences are exemplified by three EU-funded eLearning projects. The focus lies on the ongoing project ARIEL - Analysing and Reporting the Implementation of Electronic Learning in Europe - coordinated by the Institut Arbeit und Technik (IAT).