Title of the project
„Harmonisation of moral rights in the European Union“

1. Research questions
The harmonisation of moral rights in the European Union would be a big step in building a unified level of protection for the individual author in Europe. But no harmonisation exists at the European level as yet. It is an issue discussed for several years and was already the subject of a consultative hearing held in November 1992. But in spite of the many remarks about their increasing importance, e.g. in the Commission´s Green Book about the Information Society in 1995, all the seven directives on copyright leave out the fundamental question of moral rights. The reasons for this lack of action on the European Community level are said to be the strong dichotomy between the systems of copyright and Droit d´auteur and the limited impact of the differences in regulation between the Member States on the proper function of the internal market. The dissertation would like to analyse if a harmonisation of moral rights in the European Union is necessary and possible. Is it possible or not to bridge the gap between copyright and Droit d´auteur and has the European Community got the competences to harmonize moral rights or not ? These are the most important questions to be answered in the thesis.

2. Research design and choice of legislations
To answer the questions about the necessity, possibility and contents of harmonizing the moral rights of the authors in Europe, the first part of the thesis will give an overview about the history and importance of moral rights in the two different systems of copyright and Droit d´auteur. The second part will analyse the treatment of moral rights at the international and european level. The third part deals with the competences of the community to harmonize the moral rights. The fourth part is an analyse of the interests involved in the regulation of moral rights and of the arguments for and against the necessity of their harmonisation. The fifth part is the comparative law part, dealing with the legislations of France, the UK and Germany. At the end of the thesis we will find a draft of a proposal for the harmonisation of moral rights in the European Community.

The preparations of a proposal for a directive about the harmonisation of moral rights include the comparison of the three most different legislations in the field of moral rights: France, the UK and Germany. France has been chosen, because it can be considered as the motherland of droit moral. It has also been chosen because of the fact that the moral rights protection within the European Community ranges from the protectionist French legislation to the UK/Irish legislations which only provide the obligatory minimum amount of protection for moral rights demanded by Art. 6bis Berne Convention, or even less. The UK and Ireland are the only Member States with copyright systems while the other thirteen Member States belong to the Droit d´auteur system. This is the reason why the UK legislation was the second to be analysed in this thesis. Germany has been chosen because of its monistic system. A compromise based on the comparison of these three Member States has got a good chance to be a successful proposal for a harmonisation of moral rights in all the fifteen Member States of the European Union.

3. Link to the question about the „Future of a European Social Model“

The link of this thesis to the question about the „Future of a European Social Model“ is a consequence of the function of moral rights. As unwaivable, inalienable, personal rights they extend beyond the potential of contractual agreements. That´s why they are able to protect the integrity of a work and the author´s connection with it even in the situation of unequal bargaining positions. They are able to maintain a balance between the rights of the author and those of the entrepreneur. Defining an unwaivable minimum standard and protecting the weaker contracting party they are able to improve the social situation of authors in Europe. Copyright guarantees the income of the authors and that´s why it is an instrument of cultural politics, too, which stimulates the developement of the intellectual and artistic production in the European Community. The harmonisation of moral rights on a high level of protection would be a contribution to a European Social Model, in the sense of a European model for a just balance of interests in the field of cultural economy.

4. Results
It could be proved that existing differences in the way moral rights are dealt with in the Member States cause relevant obstacles to trade, especially to the free movement of goods and services, which give the Community the competences for harmonisation in Art. 95 and Art. 47 (2), 55 EC-Treaty. It could be proved, too, that harmonizing moral rights in Europe does not require any more a decision for or against one of the two systems of copyright and author´s right.