USER RIGHTS WORKSHOP SERIES

Opening Copyright Exceptions Through Fundamental Rights

Christophe Geiger and Allan Rocha de Souza
November 20, 2020 | 10:00am EST

 

Event Recording

 

It is often claimed that an open-ended provision for copyright limitations such as the US fair use clause would be unfit for civil law countries because of their author-centered traditions of copyright law and their traditional skepticism towards “judge made law” encouraged by open norms. However, the rising application in those countries of fundamental rights by the judiciary to solve copyright cases (mainly based on freedom of expression and information) and the balancing of interests it requires resemble in many aspects the practice of common law jurisdictions and the weighing of factors typically done in the context of a fair use analysis. As a consequence, this lecture examines whether some sort of “fair use” is already a reality in Europe and Brazil, where courts have applied fundamental rights in copyright cases.

About the Authors

Christophe Geiger is Professor of Law and Director of the Research Department of the Centre for International Intellectual Property Studies (CEIPI), University of Strasbourg (France), where he teaches intellectual property and competition law.

Allan Rocha de Souza is a Professor of Civil and Intellectual Property at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (PPED/UFRJ), Brazil.

Download background paper: "Fair Use" through Fundamental Rights in Europe, When Freedom of Artistic Expression allows Creative Appropriations and Opens up Statutory Copyright Limitations

User Rights Network Series

This event is part of a series presenting research from the Global Expert Network on Copyright User Rights.