Abstract

Protection and enforcement of intellectual property law are fundamental to stimulate innovation and to compete in the global economy. Copyright law is not very involved in trade agreements, in which there is more space about other intellectual property rights, such as patents, geographical indications, protected designation of origin, trademarks, designs. By setting harmonized standards in copyright law, contracting States aim at reducing national discrepancies, ensuring the level of protection required to creativity and investments in production of new original works, promoting access to knowledge for users and business. The general purpose of harmonization through the negotiation of free trade agreements, among others in different fields, would be to enforce works protected by copyright law. It implies the necessary balance between the interests of right holders (in order to achieve a reinforced protection, including by extending the copyright term of protection) and users (by accessing copyright-protected works entered the public domain following the expiration of the term of protection). This equilibrium cannot be achieved by providing for an excessive extension of the term of protection of copyright, which risks distorting the copyright nature. This research project concerns the rules provided in current trade negotiations about copyright law. Since the secrecy and lack of transparency of the trade negotiations, it has been difficult to reconstruct a precise path and background of specific language and wording of their provided rules. The reconstruction has possible thanks to leaked drafts and public statements. The result is that there are not many books and academic papers about this topic, by isolating it in academic studies.