New edition of ‘International Copyright’ by Goldstein & Hugenholtz

Preface to the Fourth Edition:
Almost two decades have passed since this book’s first edition, a period over which the technologies of the internet have increasingly preoccupied the evolution of copyright and author’s rights worldwide.  Although, as observed in the Preface to the Second Edition, the internet’s global reach has increased the salience of international copyright law, particularly at the national level where courts today routinely confront cases of cross-border copyright infringement, the political economy of the internet has over this same period stalled the legislative development of norms capable of reconciling copyright’s economic structure with the new technology’s economic promise, as rights owners, internet intermediaries and users battled law reform to a standstill.

The legislative vacuum has been significantly, though by no means completely, filled by judicial developments, most notably in Europe where the number of copyright questions brought to the CJEU  for resolution increased exponentially, and the Court issued groundbreaking decisions on a wide range of issues, including enforcement measures against online intermediaries and the scope of the right of communication to the public. Though less active, courts in common law countries have similarly sought to fill the legislative interstices with, for example, important decisions on the right of communication to the public in the United States and in Canada. Copyright exemptions have also widened significantly in the common law world, with several countries explicitly adopting the American doctrine of fair use at the same time that U.S. courts were widening the doctrine still further.

As this edition goes to press, the twenty-year legislative logjam appears to have eased, with passage of the Music Modernization Act in the United States and the adoption of the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive in the European Union. Yet to be resolved are the international copyright implications of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU, if and how it in fact occurs, and, for the longer term, the question whether the 2013 Marrakesh Treaty, which for the first time in the history of international copyright arrangements, established minimum standards for exceptions to copyright, is a one-time affair, or marks a new direction in international copyright agreements.

Table of Contents

PART I Principles of International Copyright
CHAPTER 1 Introduction
CHAPTER 2 The Legal Traditions
CHAPTER 3 The Norms of International Copyright
CHAPTER 4 Territoriality, National Treatment, Jurisdiction, and Conflict of Laws
CHAPTER 5 Scope and Points of Attachment of International Protection

PART II Substantive Copyright Law
CHAPTER 6 Subject Matter of Copyright and Neighboring Rights
CHAPTER 7 Authorship and Ownership
CHAPTER 8 Term of Protection
CHAPTER 9 Economic Rights
CHAPTER 10 Moral Rights
CHAPTER 11 Exceptions, Exemptions, Statutory Licenses, and Other Limitations on Exclusive Rights
CHAPTER 12 Enforcement

BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX

5 december 2019