Propertizing European Copyright ― History, Challenges and Opportunities

With an acceleration in the last decades, the language of property, piracy and theft has become mainstream in copyright matters. Scholars have argued that this latent propertization has progressively led to the undue expansion of copyright and an enclosure of knowledge, causing clashes with users’ fundamental rights and EU social and cultural policies. Challenging the validity of such critiques, Propertizing European Copyright demonstrates that these distortive effects are only the result of mishandled property rhetoric and that a commitment to copyright propertization could enable a more internally consistent and balanced development of EU copyright law.To prove the point, the book provides a comprehensive analysis of causes and effects of propertization in copyright history, comparing the impact of private and constitutional property doctrines in selected national experiences with the unsystematic propertization of EU copyright. The author argues for a systemization of EU copyright law, and provides practical examples of how propertization could help tackling the pitfalls of the harmonization process, achieving a greater interpretative coherence and a more stable copyright balance.Academics and policy makers engaged in the debate on EU copyright harmonization will find the multidisciplinary approach employed in this work compelling. Judges, practitioners and graduate students interested in deepening their knowledge of the construction of EU copyright will also find in this book an all-encompassing resource, rich in practical and theoretical insight.

Caterina Sganga, Associate Professor of Law, Department of Legal Studies, Central European University, Hungary