Along the Road to Uniformity – Diverse Readings of the Court of Justice Judgments on Copyright Work

EU law’s impact on the meaning of the copyright work for a long time seemed limited to software and databases. But recent judgments of the CJEU (Infopaq, BSA, FootballAssociation [Murphy], Painer) suggest we have entered an era of harmonization of copyright subject-matter, after decades of focus on the scope of exclusive rights and their duration. Unlike before however, it is the Court and not the legislator that takes centre stage in shaping pivotal concepts. This article reviews the different readings and criticisms the recent case law on copyright works evokes in legal doctrine across the EU. It puts them in the wider perspective of the on-goingdevelopment towards uniform law and the role of the preliminary reference procedure in that process.