"INTRODUCTION" [2014] ELECD 371; in Stamatoudi, A. Irini; Torremans, Paul (eds), "EU Copyright Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2014) 1

Book Title: EU Copyright Law

Editor(s): Stamatoudi, A. Irini; Torremans, Paul

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781781952429

Section Title: INTRODUCTION

Number of pages: 4

Extract:

INTRODUCTION
Irini Stamatoudi and Paul Torremans

Intellectual property rights play a pivotal role in the advance of technology, the 0.01
sustainability of creativity and the flourishing of the economy in the European
Union (EU). Copyright forms an important part of intellectual property (IP),
especially if one considers that it is closely linked to culture, knowledge,
digitisation projects, online markets and new technologies. Copyright has to
face a dual challenge. On the one hand, it needs to provide sufficient protection
to authors and right holders and on the other hand, it needs to accommodate
the needs of the information society and the public, which are mostly concerned
with access to content.

Copyright has changed shape through the years depending on copyright's 0.02
weight in the EU and the single market. When the Treaty of Rome was drafted
(1957) copyright was not an issue. The reason for that was that the aims and
targets of a European Economic Community seemed to be unrelated to IP and
even more to copyright. In the whole of the Treaty of Rome one could find just
one reference to IP and this was only to `industrial and commercial property'.
This reference was inserted as an exception to the general rule for the free
movement of goods (Art. 36 EC Treaty). At a later stage the Court of Justice of
the European Union (CJEU) applied this exception by analogy to copyright.
The case law developed on the basis of this provision was considerable and
...