Irini A. Stamatoudi – författare

Multimedia products have experienced tremendous market success. Yet too often they are given inadequate protection under existing national and international copyright schemes. Irini Stamatoudi provides a comprehensive, comparative treatment of multimedia works and copyright protection in this clear and concise volume. A detailed introduction outlines the nature of the multimedia work, as well as the scope of existing legislation; separate chapters consider collections and compilations, databases, audiovisual works and computer programs (video games are here treated as a 'test case'). Stamatoudi then analyses issues of qualification, regime of protection, and offers a model for a European legislative solution. Copyright and Multimedia Products will interest academics and students, as well as practitioners and copyright policy makers.

Multimedia products have experienced tremendous market success. Yet too often they are given inadequate protection under existing national and international copyright schemes. Irini Stamatoudi provides a comprehensive, comparative treatment of multimedia works and copyright protection in this clear and concise volume. A detailed introduction outlines the nature of the multimedia work, as well as the scope of existing legislation; separate chapters consider collections and compilations, databases, audiovisual works and computer programs (video games are here treated as a 'test case'). Stamatoudi then analyses issues of qualification, regime of protection, and offers a model for a European legislative solution. Copyright and Multimedia Products will interest academics and students, as well as practitioners and copyright policy makers.

Although copyright enforcement has always been a controversial issue, it took the advent of the Internet to raise a fundamental challenge to its very raison d’être. Legislative activity in this area during recent years clearly demonstrates the extent to which enforcement has been brought to the forefront of attention, as owners of copyrights find themselves trying to supersede the limitations of law in order to respond effectively to the reproductive power of new technologies. This timely collection of essays by European and international authorities in the field of copyright law presents a variety of valuable perspectives on the multitude of issues arising in respect of copyright enforcement on the Internet, including the following:

;the collection of evidence for allegation of infringement;identifying the infringer;jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments;liability of Internet service providers;balancing copyright, data protection, and privacy;considerations of social policy and human rights;cost and efficiency of data availability on the Internet;exchanges of information and mutual assistance among enforcement authorities;criminal liability on the Internet;combating piracy in the digital environment; andprospects for a common regulatory framework.

Most of the existing European Union and international policies are considered in some depth, and the authors also discuss a variety of national laws and initiatives, technical measures, and the soft law and hard law models that have been proposed. In the years to come, as more and more lawyers are confronted with issues involving copyright enforcement on the Internet, this book’s value as a springboard to the informed future development of this area of legal theory and practice will become more evident. For this reason, as well as for its richly detailed treatment of trends and current reality in the field, it is sure to be read and put to good use by business people, international lawyers, government officials, and interested academics in all parts of the world.

More than a source of income and a means of protection for creators, rightholders, and the creative and entertainment industries, copyright is also a vehicle for technological advances and economic development. In the European Union, industries with intensive emphasis on intellectual property rights (mainly copyright) generate more than a quarter of employment and more than a third of economic activity. Yet copyright continues to be plagued by problematic attempts to balance the interests of rightholders, the public, consumers, intermediaries, collecting societies, different national legal traditions, and other forces, European and global.

This book draws a comprehensive picture of current, pending, and proposed copyright developments – legislation, ‘communications,’ white papers, and court decisions – at the levels of the European Union and the World Intellectual Property Organization. Twenty-two well-known and prestigious experts on intellectual property law from seventeen jurisdictions worldwide contribute essays on particular trends in copyright, including discussions of the following and more:

- making content available in an EU digital single market;- collective management and multi-territorial licensing;- exceptions for libraries and archives, education and research;- traditional knowledge and cultural expressions;- unjustified geoblocking;- illegal content on the Internet;- text and data mining;- copyright enforcement online; and- role of the European Court of Justice.

Policy recommendations are also set forth, as well as a detailed conceptual framework for a potential EU Copyright Code.

As a detailed and thoughtful overview of current trends in copyright internationally, this book has no peers. It is sure to be welcomed by practitioners, policymakers, academics, researchers, and business leaders for whom intellectual property rights, and especially copyright, are of the first importance.