Diversity of cultural expressions & copyright

The conclusions of a study commissioned by the Culture and Education Committee (CULT), summarise the state of implementation of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. The research team adopted a critical approach to the idea of enhancing copyright.

Head of the study, Christophe Germann, said that while some copyright was necessary, too much copyright "is detrimental to diversity of cultural expression" and that policy-makers in the EU are generally overly exposed to lobbyists that "repeat the prevailing dogma about the need for better copyright law". According to the assessment, policy-makers who only listen to the loudest and strongest voice fail to implement the parts of the Convention they consider most valuable; diversity of cultural expression is particularly threatened by Intellectual Property Rights "in markets that are dominated by big corporations exercising collective power as oligopolies".

The study was also highly critical of the fact that, so far, there had not been any formal discussions between the EU and WTO on questions of trade and culture, and pointed out that during recent international trade negotiations the issue of "cultural exceptions" was not even raised by the EU. Dr. Germann noted that culture-related aspects of intellectual property rights might have translated into increasingly well-articulated norms of law.

Mira Burri reminded the Commission that mainstreaming a culture obligation into all relevant policy decisions is one of the obligations under the Convention.

Source: EDRI