
EXTRA It has long been the case that many of the conflicts between rights owners and online platform operators that play out as copyright disputes have as much to do with the mechanics of value capture in online markets as with any of the exclusive rights of copyright owners. There are a number of reasons for that conflation, many beyond the scope of this blog. But one big reason is that copyright law does in fact endow authors and their assignees with explicitly defined exclusive rights, the infringement of any one of which can trigger potentially ruinous statutory damages. It’s the biggest hammer in rights owners’ legal toolkit and in many ways the easiest to wield.