Speaking at the Global Expert Network on Copyright User Rights Symposium on 16 June 2025, Professor Christophe Geiger argues for a simple solution to the AI training debate. Instead of the EU’s current opt-out system,...
Read More[Christophe Geiger] Abstract: This chapter critically analyses the inclusion of intellectual property (IP) in the investment chapters of free trade agreements and bilateral investment treaties as well as their submission to their related investor state dispute settlement (ISDS). It argues that these developments pose a serious threat to a balanced and ethical innovation system. In part this is because when regulating IP to foster non-economic interests, the possibility of ISDS creates uncertainty about the ability of states to protect human rights and matters of public interest by limiting IP rights, even when such action is perfectly legitimated by the international IP system and its flexibilities.
Read More[Christophe Geiger] Without any doubt, important investments are often needed to generate creative outputs. However, the intellectual property (IP) system does not protect them as such; investments are only indirectly protected through the possibility to exploit and monetize the rights granted to a creator as a counterpart to the collective enrichment generated by the access to his new work. If the investment (however substantial) does not lead to a creative output, no protection is granted. This short opinion article tries to demonstrate that the progressive paradigm shift of intellectual property to an investment-protection mechanism is probably at the core of most of the current problems faced by the IP system.
Read More[Christophe Geiger and Elena Izyumenko] … The argument of this chapter is that, despite a relative lack of attention towards the effects of moral rights on the freedom of expression of others, moral rights, if applied in an unlimited way, might impede users’ freedoms even to a greater extent than economic rights of copyright holders. The problem thus deserves further scrutiny and solutions need to be advanced to guarantee that uses of copyright-protected works that are essential for a democratic society are not unduly hindered by moral rights.
Read More[Christophe Geiger and Elena Izyumenko] Abstract: It is often claimed that an open-ended provision for copyright limitations such as the US fair use clause would be unfit for civil law countries because of their author-centered traditions of copyright law and their traditional skepticism towards “judge made law” encouraged by open norms. However, the rising application in those countries of fundamental rights by the judiciary to solve copyright cases (mainly based on freedom of expression and information) and the balancing of interests it requires resemble in many aspects the practice of common law jurisdictions and the weighing of factors typically done in the context of a fair use analysis.
Read More[Christophe Geiger, Giancarlo Frosio and Oleksandr Bulayenko] The Proposal for a Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market aims at facilitating wider access to Europe’s cultural heritage through the introduction of inter alia a mechanism enabling the use of out-of-commerce works by cultural heritage institutions in the digital environment. After examining the key elements of this mechanism, this Opinion critically discusses the definition of the scope of search required for establishing the out-of-commerce status of works, the requirement of the representative character of collective management organisations and the non-application of the mechanism to third-country works.
Read More[Abstract] This chapter discusses the evolution of the jurisprudential understanding in the European Union of the relationship between copyright and freedom of artistic expression and demonstrates how courts specifically in France but also in several other Member States have been accepting a sort of “fair use” approach through the application of fundamental rights as external limitations to copyright law.
Read More[Christophe Geiger and Elena Izyumenko] Abstract: In the past years, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR, or Strasbourg Court), Europe’s principal human rights watchdog, has played an ever larger role in the resolution of intellectual property (IP) disputes. The ECtHR’s engagement in IP adjudication has already influenced national judges, who increasingly have recourse to human rights to solve cases between private parties, thus calling for closer scrutiny of the Court’s practice on this matter. The present chapter provides the first comprehensive overview of the ECtHR case law on IP for the period since the Court’s inception (in January 1959) until today (February 2018).
Read MoreUC Irvine Law Review 2018, Volume 8, Issue 3, Forthcoming CEIPI Research Paper No. 2017-08 Abstract: Copyright was originally intended to serve creators as an engine of free expression, protecting them from the interference of...
Read MoreChristophe Geiger, Giancarlo Frosio, Oleksandr Bulayenko The European Commission’s planned copyright reform proposes to adapt EU law to the challenges emerging in the Digital Single Market (DSM).[1] In particular, new mandatory...
Read MoreAuthors: Christophe Geiger and Elena Izyumenko Abstract: Courts have traditionally considered copyright to be immune to any external freedom of expression review, the tension between those rights having to be resolved through...
Read MoreAuthors: Christophe Geiger, Oleksandr Bulayenko, and Giancarlo F. Frosio Abstract: This article discusses the proposed introduction in EU law of neighbouring rights for press publishers for the digital uses of their...
Read MoreChristophe Geiger, Oleksandr Bulayenko and Giancarlo Frosio Centre for International Intellectual Property Studies, Link Summary: Among its key features, the European Commission’s planned copyright reform proposes to introduce...
Read MoreAuthors: Christophe Geiger and Elena Izyumenko Abstract: In recent years, intellectual property enforcement by ordering Internet access providers to block infringing websites has been rapidly evolving in Europe. Understandable...
Read MoreMax Planck Institute for Innovation & Competition Research Paper No. 15-14 Abstract: In order to enable future creativity, some uses are traditionally kept outside the control of the right owner through limitations to the...
Read MoreAbstract: Copyright, originally conceived as a tool to protect the author and to provide incentives to create for the benefit of society, is nowadays more and more perceived as a mechanism to the advantage of “large, impersonal...
Read MoreChristophe Geiger, Oleksandr Bulayenko, Théo Hassler, Elena Izyumenko, Franciska Schönherr, and Xavier Seuba, Centre for International Intellectual Property Studies (CEIPI) University of Strasbourg, Link Abstract: In...
Read MoreOpinion on the Judgment of the CJEU in Case C-201/13 Deckmyn Abstract: In this opinion, the European Copyright Society (ECS) puts on record its views on the issues raised by the Judgment of the Court of Justice of the European...
Read MoreAbstract: Despite the crucial importance of ensuring a just balance of interests within intellectual property law, a well ‘thought-out’ IP clause is still lacking in an overwhelming majority of human rights instruments....
Read MoreAbstract: In order to fight mass-scale copyright infringements on the Internet, numerous legislative initiatives have recently been proposed or adopted with the aim to improve the enforcement of copyright in the online world....
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