Origin, Objectives, and Content of the Directive

This chapter provides an overview of the overall EU copyright harmonization project and explains the history of the 2019 EU Directive on copyright in the Digital Single Market (Directive 2019/790) and the place that it has within the broader EU copyright architecture. It recounts the copyright reform in Europe, which has been based on the harmonization at the EU level and modernization at the EU national level. It also stresses that EU harmonization has been prompted by internal market concerns and concerns regarding the overall competitiveness and appropriateness of the EU copyright regime. The chapter describes the field of copyright, wherein the process of Europeanization of national laws has resulted in their settlement to and convergence with EU law. It mentions the 1988 Green Paper by the Commission of the European Communities, which signaled the start of a more concrete discourse around copyright harmonization.