The “Pluralism or universalism” dilemma in international copyright law

The aim of the conference is to deal with the contemporary evolutions of copyright law under a comparative perspective. With the adoption of the Berne Convention a vast movement of minimum harmonisation of the national copyright legal frameworks was engaged. The projects aims to define whereas this movement is nowadays still valid or the influence of new technologies and the phenomena of regional harmonisations endanger the ideal of a universally harmonised copyright law.

In the Global Village which is driven by technological breakthroughs, the territorial constraints related to national copyright laws are seen as an impediment to the reality and the dynamic potential of the borderless circulation of copyright protected goods. Faced to the challenges of new technologies of communication, national copyright laws are in a research of elasticity and of drastic reforms. This could lead to a fragmentation of the international legal framework due to divergent national responses. For instance, while sharing some general common principles (such as the three step test), the issue of new copyright exceptions has been handled differently in the USA and in Europe.

The notion of EU regional harmonisation refers to the continuous effort – mainly at a legislative level, but also as a consequence of a certain form of judicial activism – of harmonisation of the national legal frameworks at the European Union level. This harmonisation leads to the creation of a new set of rules, whose compatibility with the international legal framework has to be discussed.

Therefore, the conference aims to answer two interrelated questions: is the Berne’s Convention ideological heritage of harmonisation of Copyright laws in peril? Should this eventual plurality of national responses be seen as a concern or, on the contrary, should a policy of a more profound regionalization of Copyright law be opted?

The conference is addressed to a wide audience and is expected to be attended by lawyers, students, artists, creators, publishers, audiovisual and music producers, information portals, Press representatives, police and other state authorities and a host of private bodies, while at the same time, approximately 30 prestigious academics and researchers from both Cyprus and several other countries and universities around the world, will elaborate all the issues emerged, aiming to a fruitful educational procedure.

Organiser: Associate Professor Tatiana Eleni Synodinou