RESEARCH HANDBOOK ON THE FUTURE OF EU COPYRIGHT

Several things prompted the idea for this book in Autumn 2006. First, it was 15 years since the EU had started harmonising copyright law. If we include the Community courts case law, harmonisation – albeit indirect – dates back to 1971 with Deutsche Grammophon1 the first decision in the field of copyright which, in a groundbreaking way not only decided that copyright was within the competence of the Community but also that in the context of the free movement of goods and services, an end should be put to protectionism by creating the concept of European exhaustion. Second, the Commission’s harmonisation plans in the field of copyright had...