The idea for this book arose out of conversations we had while we were both working at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. At the time plans for a European Directive to deal with copyright in the ‘information society’ were at an early stage, but it was already apparent that copyright users were going to struggle to influence the legislative process. We were also concerned that plans for European harmonisation were premature, given that significant doubt remained (and still remains) about some of the directions in which technological developments were taking us. At the same time, however, we did not share the outright opposition expressed by some to any suggestion that copyright exceptions might be harmonised in Europe. In particular, it seemed to us that the United Kingdom's permitted act regime was much too restrictive, and that European harmonisation might provide an opportunity to revisit the entire system of copyright exceptions to an extent that was unlikely to arise in the absence of European intervention in this area.

Our plans for this book have changed considerably since our initial discussions and we have benefited from talking about our ideas with a number of people, including Anne Barron, Lionel Bently, Huw Beverley-Smith, Bill Cornish, Susan Davies, Paul Mitchell and John Phillips. Nevertheless, many of the themes that sparked our interest in this project have remained more or less consistent. We have touched on these themes and on some of the other ideas that inform this work in earlier publications.