Actual Problems of Copyright Law on Licensing Content Online

Copyright law has several traditional principles and concepts which are staple ones in most national laws and internationals acts. Nowadays they have difficulties adapting to the new digital environment, in particular to the new business models of licensing content online. Copyright legislation is mostly traditional while conditions of licensing are extremely developed in cyber world. Most scholars claim it is necessary to harmonize copyright law for its efficient functioning on licensing content online. However, there are cases in which traditional copyright law was applied to new business models. In this way, is it actually necessary to adapt copyright principles to online licensing in the legislative level or adapting by practice is efficient? For coming to conclusion regarding this problem I analyze the legislation and cases of European Union and its states, USA and Russia, compare their experience in adapting traditional copyright law to digital licensing and evaluate whether it is necessary to modernize copyright law, in particular in Russia. This paper seeks to explore whether these traditional copyright principles and concepts are compatible with different online models and whether the legislation needs modernization and harmonization.