The Copyright Directive is the European Union's attempt to update copyright protection to keep pace with technology. It harmonises the principal rights of authors and certain other rightsholders and provides for certain exceptions to copyright and the protection of anti-circumvention measures and rights management information.
Moreover, it is the means by which the European Union and its Member States implement the two 1996 World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) "Internet Treaties", the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty, which have adapted copyright protection to digital technology. This, says the Commission, makes implementation all the more urgent.
The upgrade in national copyright law should have been completed by 22nd December 2002; but only Greece and Denmark met the deadline.
Italy and Austria implemented the Directive in April and June 2003 respectively, while the UK came into line in October last year – after the Commission had initiated infringement proceedings against those Member States who had yet to implement the measure.
According to the Legal Media Group, the Netherlands has now made the necessary changes to its national laws, leaving Finland, Sweden, Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal and the Accession states still to bring the Directive into force.