Re: WIPO Copyright Treaty Article 11 & Grammar

On 4/20/98, Bob Stock <bstock[_at_]ucla.edu> wrote:
>
> Article 11 of the WIPO Copyright Treaty of 1996 states:
>
> "Contracting Parties shall provide adequate legal protection and
> effective legal remedies against the circumvention of effective
> technological measures that are used by authors in connection with
> the exercise of their rights under this Treaty or the Berne
> Convention and that restrict acts, in respect of their works, which
> are not authorized by the authors concerned or permitted by law."
>
> I am interested in parsing grammatically the last clause "not authorized
> by the authors concerned or permitted by law." For the purpose of this
> message I am *not* interested in any substantive arguments as to what it
> means, just grammatical and logic arguments.
>
> Here are my questions:
>
> 1. Does the "not" in the last clause modify both authorized and permitted?
>
> 2. Is there only one possible answer to #1, or could the "not" modify
> authorized but not modify permitted?
>
> 3. If the answer to #1 is yes, we then have not(authorized or permitted),
> and under that assumption I have the following questions:
>
> a. Is the meaning of that construction "neither authorized nor permitted"?
>
> b. Is the meaning of that construction "either not authorized or not
> permitted"?
>
> c. Are both a and b possible, correct interpretations?
>
> 4. For whatever your answers are, do you have any source (either grammar
> or logic) to support your answers?
>
> Feel free to add anything else that I may have missed in analyzing the
> grammar/logic of the clause, but, again, please do not buttress your
> conclusions with things like intent of the drafters or absurd results or
> anything else substantive. I am also not interested in possible
> incorrect interpretations, i.e., what someone *might* conclude but
> erroneously.
>

There seems to me to be no ambiguity here. # 1 is the only plausible interpretation. [I have both legislative intent and *extremely* absurd results from a contrary interpretation to support my reading, as a matter of fact, but you don't want to hear those].

Regarding question 3, the language seems quite clear to me: member states shall restrict acts which both lack authorization from the copyright owner, and which are not otherwise permitted by the law.

Mark Lemley
<mlemley[_at_]mail.law.utexas.edu> Received on Sun Apr 26 1998 - 18:32:53 GMT