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How does copyright law take into account the interests of third parties, especially the general public’s interest in the greatest possible dissemination of knowledge and culture? Twelve basic questions give copyright law experts from more than forty countries the opportunity to provide answers related to their national law on the following matters: categories of works and subject matter, eligibility conditions, duration, “users’ rights,” the three-step test, misuse, differentiations between categories of right holders, TPM, and relations of copyright law to other legal areas such as fundamental rights, competition law, consumer protection law, media law etc. The standardized form of the reports makes it easy to see the impacts of copyright law in the industrialized countries as well as in emerging economies; in common-law and civil-law approaches; in countries of the Andean Community and of the European Union, as well as in countries that are not party to the WIPO Treaties. A detailed preliminary chapter provides an approachable overview of issues and results. This chapter also discusses the voice of academia, represented by the European Copyright Code of the “Wittem Group.”

Under the auspices of the Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property and Competition Law (now the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition). And Institutum Iurisprudentiae, Academia Sinica, a group of twenty scholars from around the world gathered to study the experiences made with regards to compulsory licensing. The results are demonstrated in this book. Different articles analyze how the international conventions on intellectual property may be interpreted and explore the related doctrinal groundwork surrounding compulsory patent licensing and beyond. It is shown how the compulsory licensing regime could be transformed into a truly workable mechanism facilitating the speedy use and dissemination of innovation and other subject matters of protection.

How does copyright law take into account the interests of third parties, especially the general public’s interest in the greatest possible dissemination of knowledge and culture? Twelve basic questions give copyright law experts from more than forty countries the opportunity to provide answers related to their national law on the following matters: categories of works and subject matter, eligibility conditions, duration, “users’ rights,” the three-step test, misuse, differentiations between categories of right holders, TPM, and relations of copyright law to other legal areas such as fundamental rights, competition law, consumer protection law, media law etc. The standardized form of the reports makes it easy to see the impacts of copyright law in the industrialized countries as well as in emerging economies; in common-law and civil-law approaches; in countries of the Andean Community and of the European Union, as well as in countries that are not party to the WIPO Treaties. A detailed preliminary chapter provides an approachable overview of issues and results. This chapter also discusses the voice of academia, represented by the European Copyright Code of the “Wittem Group.”

Unfair competition law is concerned with fair play in commerce. It is generally regarded as necessary – together with antitrust law – in order to steer competition along an orderly course, and thereby to contribute to promoting an efficient market system that serves the interests of all participants. Nevertheless the significance of unfair competition law varies from one country to another. Whereas in some countries, such as Germany, it is seen as one of the most effective commercial laws, in other countries, such as the United Kingdom, it leads rather a shadowy existence. From the outset, this discrepancy laid in the differences in national legal s- tems. Whilst those continental European countries that possessed a written civil law when instances of unfair competition emerged, more or less successfully attempted to incorporate them in the existing tort law system, protection in the common law countries was restricted to some narrowly defined torts, in particular “passing off”. At this stage one of the few shared convictions was, that the protection of “honest entrepreneurs” was at issue; on this basis, in 1900, the only regulation at the int- bis national level until now was enacted, Art. 10 of the Paris Convention.

Immer häufiger wird der stetig ausgebaute urheberrechtliche Schutz von Werken und sonstigen Leistungen als Hemmschuh für die Entwicklung einer globalen Wissens- und Informationsgesellschaft empfunden. Im November 2003 veranstaltete das Max-Planck-Institut für Geistiges Eigentum, Wettbewerbs- und Steuerrecht eine Tagung zur Frage, ob das geltende Urheberrecht noch einen angemessenen Ausgleich zwischen den Interessen der Kreativen, der Verwerter und der nutzenden Allgemeinheit herstellt oder ob und inwieweit es korrekturbedürftig erscheint. Die im Rahmen dieser Tagung entstandenen und in diesem Tagungsband versammelten Beiträge in- und ausländischer Urheberrechtler gehen dieser Problematik auf vier Ebenen nach: • der Schutzbereich des Urheberrechts (u. a. Urheberrecht und privater Werkgenuss, Erschöpfung des Urheberrechts bei Online-Nutzung); • der Rechtsschutz technischer Schutzmaßnahmen (u. a.: Auswirkungen von DRM auf die Zukunft des Urheberrechts); • die inneren und äußeren Schranken des Urheberrechts (u. a.: Kartellrecht, Grundrechte); • das Verhältnis von Urheberrecht und Vertragsrecht (u. a. Wirksamkeit von AGB, die an sich zulässige Schrankennutzungen untersagen).