Is harmonization a good thing? The case of the copyright acquis

This chapter analyses the development of European copyright law. The author distinguishes between three phases: a decade of directives, a time of consolidation in which harmonisation was mainly pursued through "soft law" and the present period of judicial activism. He finds that harmonisation through directives has produced mixed results at great expense, and its beneficial effects on the Internal Market are limited at best, and remain largely unproven. What is more, harmonisation through directives does not provide a solution to the territorial fragmentation of European copyright law. Hence the author argues in favour of a unitary European copyright law, as proposed by the Wittem Group, which the EU institutions could create on the basis of Article 118 TFEU.