FITUG e.V.

Förderverein Informationstechnik und Gesellschaft

A Review of the Last Ten Years and A Look at What Lies Ahead: Copyright and Related Rights in the European Union

<http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/intprop/news/reinbothe04-04-02.htm>

- 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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