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European Copyright Society Pursues Unification of European Copyright Law in Open Letter

Posted on    by Andrew McHugh
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European Copyright Society Pursues Unification of European Copyright Law in Open Letter

By 19 January 2015No Comments

19th December 2014 – CREATe director Prof Martin Kretschmer and Investigator Prof Estelle Derclaye are among members of the European Copyright Society (ECS) which has approached the new Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society seeking unification of copyright law in the European Union. Following earlier calls for improvements to EU rules on copyright law the Society emphasised in their open letter to Mr Günther Oettinger that the time was right to develop a European law with uniform and direct applicability across the Union.

The Society cited territoriality associated with the existing national approach to copyright law, causing an associated fragmentation of markets along national boundaries, restricting the emergence of a Digital Single Market for creative content and undermining international competitiveness.

The Society accepted the challenges associated with achieving unification, conceding that it would be a medium to long-term objective, but urged Mr. Oettinger to dismiss the arguments of those equating time-consuming with ‘unrealistic’.

Download the European Copyright Society’s Open Letter to Mr Oettinger.

Members of the European Copyright Society:

Prof. Valérie Laure Benabou
Professor, University Versailles Saint Quentin

Prof. Lionel Bently
Director, Centre of Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL), University of Cambridge, United Kingdom

Prof. Robert Clark
Emeritus Professor, University College, Dublin, Ireland

Prof. Estelle Derclaye
Professor of Intellectual Property Law, University of Nottingham, United Kingdom

Prof. Graeme B. Dinwoodie
Director, Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre (OIPRC), University of Oxford, United Kingdom

Prof. Dr. Thomas Dreier
Director, Institute for Information and Economic Law, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany

Prof. Séverine Dusollier
Professor, School of Law, SciencesPo, Paris (France), and Centre de Recherche Information, Droit et Société (CRIDS), University of Namur (Belgium)

Prof. Christophe Geiger
Director, Centre d’Etudes Internationales de la Propriété Intellectuelle (CEIPI), University of Strasbourg, France

Jonathan Griffiths
Reader in Intellectual Property Law, School of Law, Queen Mary University of London, United Kingdom

Prof. Reto Hilty
Director, Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Munich, Germany

Prof. P. Bernt Hugenholtz
Director, Institute for Information Law, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands

Prof. Marie-Christine Janssens
Professor Intellectual Property Law, University Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium

Prof. Martin Kretschmer
Director, CREATe, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom

Prof. Axel Metzger
Professor of Civil and Intellectual Property Law, Humboldt-Universität Berlin

Prof. Dr. Alexander Peukert
Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Prof. Ole-Andreas Rognstad
Professor of Law, Department of Private Law, University of Oslo, Norway

Prof. Marco Ricolfi
Chair of Intellectual Property, Turin Law School, Italy

Prof. Martin Senftleben
Professor of Intellectual Property, VU University Amsterdam, Netherlands

Prof. Alain Strowel,
Professor, Saint-Louis University and University of Liège, Belgium

Prof. Raquel Xalabarder
Chair on Intellectual Property, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain.