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[FYI] A Review of the Last Ten Years and A Look at What Lies Ahead: Copyright and Related Rights in the European Union
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- Subject: [FYI] A Review of the Last Ten Years and A Look at What Lies Ahead: Copyright and Related Rights in the European Union
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- Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 20:23:14 +0200
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<http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/intprop/news/reinbothe0
4-04-02.htm>
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A Review of the Last Ten Years and A Look at What Lies Ahead:
Copyright and Related Rights in the European Union
- A speech by Jörg Reinbothe
I. Introduction
Is it a mere coincidence that we are celebrating today and tomorrow
the 10th anniversary of the Fordham Conference on "International
Intellectual Property Law and Policy"? In fact, it isn’t. It is no
coincidence that, as Hugh Hansen put it in his "Conference Director’s
Note", the preface for the first volume of the Fordham Conference
proceedings, "in the spring of 1992, Jean-François Verstrynghe, then
the Head of Division DG III/E-4, suggested that Fordham University
School of Law institute an annual conference on EC copyright law".
Ten years ago, copyright harmonisation at European Union level was in
a crucial, though fairly early stage, and had just reached cruising
speed with the adoption of the Software Directive in 1991. The clock
was ticking for accomplishing the European Internal Market by the
target date of 1 January 1993. Around the same time, the negotiations
on the TRIPs Agreement were concluded in substance. And finally, also
ten years ago, efforts were initiated at international level to
update the Berne and Rome Conventions. In those days, terms such as
Information Society, cyberspace or digital rights were still unheard
of, and yet we all felt that it would take our combined efforts to
adapt copyright protection to the next millennium.
Now, at this 10th Fordham Conference, we can look back at ten
successful years of copyright legislation. Seven European Union
copyright Directives have been adopted, the TRIPs Agreement is being
implemented worldwide, and the two WIPO "Internet Treaties" WCT and
WPPT come into force in the first half of this year. We have done a
good job, I think, and we have done it together: co-ordination
between the USA and the European Union on these matters has always
been the key for success.
But copyright, more than ever, is an evolving scenario. If we were to
rest on our joint successes, we would miss out on the future and fail
to structure copyright according to the challenges of new technology
and new markets. In Brussels, we feel that we have reached a
crossroad, where copyright policy has to compete with consumer,
competition or other policies, and where the protection of creativity
and investments is challenged by open source movements or the
promotion of alternative business models. Besides a description of
the ten years behind us, I will, therefore, try to present our
visions for the future.
[...]
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