Creative Commons

This study regards a brief overview of the legal situation regarding the interaction between personal data protection and intellectual property at the European Union level. The first section addresses the issue of the concept of personal data protection. In particular, it analyzes the naissance and evolvement of the rights of privacy and personal data protection, the European legal framework, the influence of the digital age over them, as well as the issue of the IP addresses which may be considered or not as personal data. The second section analyzes issues regarding the intellectual property rights. More precisely, it analyses the definition and evolution of intellectual property rights, the European regulatory framework of copyright protection and it presents the implications of technology in the intellectual property rights, through the emergence of the internet, digital piracy, peer-to-peer file-sharing. Lastly, it deals with the issues of the ISPs‟ liability and the DRM as a means to protect copyright. The third section addresses the issue of the interaction of data protection and online copyright enforcement and of whether the European legal framework for data protection presents a barrier to the fight against online copyright infringement, on the basis of the pertinent case-law and more precisely the Peppermint and Promusicae cases. The methodology of preparing this study is based on a pertinent EU law (primary and secondary) analysis of personal data protection and intellectual property rights protection, on the case law concerning the collision of these two fundamental rights, opinions of national data protection authorities, as well as the relevant literature (books and articles).