Introduction

Around the middle of the last century, the importance of copyright within both undergraduate and postgraduate courses was relatively modest. In the undergraduate curricula – where it extended, if at all, to intellectual property rights in general, and to copyright, in particular – only a couple of hours were devoted to these rights. As regards copyright, this usually consisted of an outline of the social-political justification of copyright protection, the identification of the applicable national law and international treaties (in general, only the Berne Convention), a listing of moral rights and economic rights along with the exceptions to, and limitations of, the latter rights, a reference to the term of protection, some discussion about copyright contracts and a brief description of the available enforcement measures.

Since that time, there have been accelerating developments in and around the field of copyright. These have included: the recognition of related (or “neighboring”) rights in the Rome Convention and in more national laws; the advent of a number of new technologies for the creation and use of works and objects of related rights; the emergence of widespread piracy as a result of the ever easier and more perfect reproduction technologies; the extension of copyright protection to new categories of works (such as computer programs, databases and videogames); the growing importance of copyright industries for national economies and international trade, reflected, inter alia, in the TRIPS Agreement; and the spectacular success of digital technology and the Internet with a number of challenges for copyright and related rights, leading to the adoption of the WIPO “Internet Treaties” (WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) and the WIPO Performers and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT)).