The Competence of the European Union in Copyright Lawmaking: A Normative Perspective of Eu Powers for Copyright Harmonization

This book inquires into the competence of

the EU to legislate in the field of copyright, and uses content analysis

techniques to demonstrate the existence of a normative gap in copyright

lawmaking. To address that gap, it proposes the creation of benchmarks of

legislative activity, reasoning that EU secondary legislation, such as directives

and regulations, should be based on higher sources of law. It investigates two

such possible sources: the activity of the EU Court of Justice in the

pre-legislative era and the EU treaties. From these sources, the author

establishes concrete benchmarks of legislative activity, which she then tests

by applying them to current EU copyright legislation. This provides examples of

good and bad practices in copyright lawmaking and also shows how the benchmarks

could be implemented in copyright legislation. Finally, the author offers some

recommendations in this regard.

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