Essien on Interpretation of the Copyright's Public Domain in the European Union: A Criminal Discourse Analysis

Oswald Essien has published Interpretation of the Copyright’s Public Domain in the European Union; a Critical Discourse Analysis. Here is the abstract.

In the digital economy, the public domain is a sublime legal concept that fosters innovation and participatory culture. Despite its benefits, its sublimeness, particularly in this age of digitization, may pose a problem for users. This is due to the term's imprecise conception, static definition, and subdued representation. As a result, users have difficulty engaging with and understanding the status of public domain works. This article presents a contemporary public domain definition and conceptual model that can help users engage with the public domain and enrich academicians' vocabulary. To achieve precision, various methods for conceptualising the public domain have been used. These include boundary exploration, identification, grouping, and mapping works in the public domain. This method, while useful for identifying works that have never entered the public domain, excluded contents, and so on, does not interpret the public domain. As a result, this article employs critical discourse analysis to uncover the nature of the public domain (that is, use) while proposing a contemporary definition for the public domain. A contemporary definition of the copyright's public domain raises awareness of the concept's evolution, allowing for better protection and comprehension in the face of increased digitization.

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