Copyright formalities in the Internet Age: Filters of protection or facilitators of licensing

The author refers to the objectives that inspired the reintroduction of copyright formalities, pointing to two specific objectives, facilitate the acquisition of copyrights and to improve the flow of information to increase public domain. Both would help achieve the overall objective of creating legal certainty about the authorship, property and terms of protection of works. Determined these objectives, the author examines how and what kind of formalities, in the light of the requirements of the Berne Convention, could help achieve those objectives. He concludes that currently could only be introduced formalities in order to facilitate the acquisition of rights, unless the prohibition against formalities of the Berne Convention is changed.