Stamatoudi, Irini --- "Could multimedia works be protected as a form of audiovisual works?" [2007] ELECD 300; in Torremans, Paul (ed), "Copyright Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2007)

Book Title: Copyright Law

Editor(s): Torremans, Paul

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845424879

Section: Chapter 8

Section Title: Could multimedia works be protected as a form of audiovisual works?

Author(s): Stamatoudi, Irini

Number of pages: 22

Extract:

8 Could multimedia works be protected
as a form of audiovisual works?
Irini Stamatoudi1



1. Introduction
During the last few years multimedia products have experienced exponential
growth on the international market.2 This growth has in turn produced a need
for their immediate protection. Although it is clear that multimedia products
are considered to be works for the purposes of copyright,3 and therefore are
protected as such, it is not immediately clear under which specific category of
copyright works, if any, they come.4 This is important, especially for those
countries, such as the UK, where classification of a work is necessary in order
for the work to attract copyright protection.
The experience of copyright lawyers and others to date shows that there is,
arguably at least, a strong presumption that data including or mainly
composed of sound and images, which are projected onto a screen, fall within


1 Dr, Director of the Greek National Copyright Organisation.
2 The multimedia market has seen an exponential growth in terms of turnover
in the first half of the 1990s. Various estimates are available and whilst all of them
show huge growth on average, the figures for 1995 and 1996 ($12.5 to 17 billion) were
between 5 and 10 times higher than those for 1989 or 1992 ($1.2 to 3.2 billion). For
further details see Vercken, G. (1996), Practical Guide to Copyright for Multimedia
Producers, European Commission, DGXIII, pp. 16 seq. Other sources indicated that
the growth in turnover ...