A comprehensive guide to the InfoSoc Directive

Abstract

While the history of copyright law in the European Union (EU) dates back to the early days of the European Economic Community (EEC), this field of law has gained real significance only after legislation started being enacted at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s. The first vertical directives of the EEC first and then the EC and the EU focused only on specific copyright issues (computer programs; broadcasting through satellite and cable services; certain economic rights of copyright and related right holders; term of protection; and database). The whole idea of ‘pan-European copyright law’ was missing until the creation of the horizontal InfoSoc Directive in 2001.1 While this piece of legislation has led to intense debates, eg with respect to its terminology, effectiveness and flexibilities, no one can deny that it has significantly contributed to a more uniform copyright system within the EU. The EU copyright regime has been constantly analysed in treatises and textbooks, including the works by Walter and von Lewinski,2 Pila and Torremans,3 Kur and Dreier4 and Seville textbooks,5 just to name a few. While the Walter and von Lewinski treatise bears the closest similarity to Brigitte Lindner’s and Ted Shapiro’s book, both in its style and its length, none of the above-mentioned titles can defeat the hereby reviewed book in its depth and length with respect to the InfoSoc Directive. Indeed, according to the present reviewer’s knowledge, Brigitte Lindner’s and Ted Shapiro’s edited volume is the longest one that is dedicated to the analysis of a single copyright directive.