Copyright aspects of the European Union's free trade agreements

Abstract

This chapter examines the dialectic interaction of trade interests and non-trade values in the context of the European Union’s latest free trade agreements (FTAs). The chapter’s analysis is guided by the controversial rationale of the international protection of intellectual property. While invention-exporting nations (such as the EU and the US) tend to regard the protection of intellectual property as a moral imperative (and the ignorance of these rights a theft), invention-importing countries tend to discard this categorical approach and consider that the level of protection, at least as far as property rights are concerned, should be determined by a cost-benefit analysis. The chapter tests these claims through exploring the trends and looking into the contents of the European Union’s latest FTAs. The chapter showcases how the EU has strived to enhance the level of protection beyond the one provided by the TRIPs and has constantly broadened the scope of the copyright chapters of the FTAs in order to build a TRIPs+ (or acquis communautaire+) copyright system within the frames of the EU’s trade agreements. The purpose is to give a general assessment of these FTAs in light of the dialectic interaction of trade interests and non-trade values.