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.
