Reform in the EU copyright law: Copyright in the Digital Single Market: Directive Aims, Reasons and Impacts on Affected Subjects

This thesis examines how the equilibrium between the opposing interests of copyright protection and dissemination of works is reached in the EU Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (DSM) that updates copyright rules to the digital environment. It aims at evaluating the outcomes of the Directive on the stakeholders involved and at deducing relative weaknesses and strengths of its main balancing system, the exceptions and limitations to copyright, by comparing it to the American Fair Use Policy. The work consists of three main chapters. The first one presents the debate on the economic motivations and justifications for the existence of Intellectual Property and examines the approach to copyright reflected in the DSM Directive. The second chapter is focused on the most controversial novelties, analyzing both their economic consequences for stakeholders and how the balance between copyright protection and access to works is reached in each of the cases. The third chapter begins with a theoretic-economic comparison of the European and American copyright systems. Then, it continues by focusing on the differences between the EU system of exceptions and limitations to copyright – as modified by the DSM Directive – and the corresponding USA’s Fair Use Policy, aiming at underlining strengths and weaknesses of the former, with special focus on different impacts of the two doctrines on affected stakeholders.