Mission completed! A comprehensive monograph on the challenges of digital copyright law in the EU

Extract

Selecting the topic of a book in the field of copyright law is an increasingly difficult task these days. This is not only due to the complex nature of existing copyright norms and case law (overregulation) or the massive amount of sources available on paper and online (content oversupply). Another similarly important reason for a cautious selection is the current (and constantly accelerating) pace of development of copyright law, the code and social norms. What is an exciting hot potato today can easily become copyright history the next.

Bernd Justin Jütte has, however, clearly noticed that the modernization of copyright law in the European Union, especially under the umbrella of the Digital Single Market Strategy, is a topic that will stay with us for several years yet. A further reason for a cautious selection of the book’s topic might be that all tensions around digital copyright law can be interpreted in multiple concurring or dissenting ways, depending heavily on the side we argue for. The number of affected stakeholders has grown significantly with the proliferation of the digital economy. These stakeholders do not only include rights holders (that is, authors as well as the ‘content industry’, including publishers, recording and film studios, broadcasting organizations, software producers etc), but also aggregators and other intermediaries; internet service providers; customers/consumers (whichever expression we prefer); collective rights management associations, lobbyists or civil organizations representing these actors; and in some form domestic, regional and international legislation and the (increasingly activist) judiciary. All stakeholders can have strikingly different legal and business interests, logic and needs in the digital society, as well as concurring privileges—either exclusive statutory or contractual rights, or statutory limitations and exceptions (L&Es)—under the copyright status quo.