Nobody likes today's copyright law. Widespread unauthorized use of copyright material proliferates with impunity, while citizens and users protest that intrusive copyright and related rights law stifle cultural expression. Equipment manufacturers and intermediaries complain about yet more 'security' features that complicate their products and services and encumber marketing, while content owners desperately want enforcement to work. And of course it is crucial that whatever regulatory instruments come into play must not age prematurely in Internet time. The European Union faces the daunting challenge of articulating coherent copyright policies that satisfy these contradictory multiple demands. Yet the legal framework must conform to the European Union's remit of fostering economic growth in a common market, while respecting the national traditions of its still growing family of Member States. Clearly, an extraordinary balancing act is called for if justice is to be done to all of the private and public interests affected. So how has the European acquis communautaire scored on these issues so far? In this groundbreaking study the Institute for Information Law of the University of Amsterdam brings its extensive academic expertise to bear on this question. The authors scrutinize the present law as laid down in the seven copyright and related rights directives, against the background of the relevant international standards of the Berne Convention, the TRIPs agreement, and the WIPO Internet Treaties. They map out in detail the degree to which certain areas of copyright have been harmonized as they expose the gaps and inconsistencies in the acquis and the urgent unresolved issues that persist. They identify the EU's ambitions in relation to its present and future competences (following the Lisbon Reform) to regulate copyright, and to its Better Regulation agenda. Following a comprehensive analysis of almost two decades of regulatory intervention, they move on the salient current trends that point toward a more coherent and balanced European copyright law. This book will be welcomed by all those interested or involved in the regulation of copyright and related rights law. Legal scholars, academic and research institutions, corporate counsel, lawyers, government policymakers, and regulators - all these and more will benefit enormously from the profound analysis presented here.

Nobody denies that the traditional territorial approach to copyright and other intellectual property rights has come under pressure. Yet it persists. Faced with the need to determine the applicable law in cross-border cases, lawyers everywhere wrestle with the implications of the territorial nature of copyright and related rights. In this book, Mireille van Eechoud clears the way to the formulation of conflict rules that reflect the purpose of copyright law- to protect creators and stimulate the production and use of information-without reverting to old-fashioned notions of territoriality. She shows how the applicable law can be determined for four distinct legal avenues of intellectual property law: Which exclusive rights exist in an intellectual creation and for how long; Who is considered to own such right; How can these rights be transferred; and What continues infringement of copyright and related rights. Mireille van Eechoud shows how, when each of these questions is approached in the light of the different allocation principles used in modern choice of law, a new clarity begins to emerge that promises in time to build a set of conflict rules well suited to the unprecedented copyright and related rights issues that we find so difficult to resolve today. Her in-depth analysis draws in the classis multilateral conventions and treaties, underlying policies, technological and economic developments, utilitarian grounds versus justice considerations, and issues of infringement in the digital environment.