Copyright Law is the chief means of regulating the creative production; yet whether in its current form it manages to sufficiently accommodate contemporary art’s special needs remains questionable. This dissertation aims in identifying the main ways in which contemporary art practices collide with fundamental principles of Copyright and present them collectively in light of both common and civil law provisions, while taking into account the applicable harmonizing attempts conducted within the EU ‘Acquis Communautaire’. In the pursuit of clarifying how does the Copyright legal regime respond to the special needs set by present-day works, first the reader will be introduced to the basics of contemporary art; thereinafter a comparative analysis between the two distinct legal traditions will be performed, while emphasizing on those particularities that introduce copyright’s inadequacy to satisfyingly protect specific works of the contemporary visual arts, posing instead key-challenges to their copyrightability. Intending to introduce its state of insufficiency the divergent ‘originality’ assessments and the exclusionary effects of subsidiary requirements for attracting protection will be addressed; the unique problems put forward by appropriation art and the extent to which interactivity may interfere with authorship will be stressed. Throughout the study, contemporary works that defy Copyright law principles will be exhibited, relevant national and regional legislation will be cited and pertinent case law will be annotated.
Keywords: copyright, contemporary art, originality, fixation, idea-expression dichotomy, subject matter, appropriation, authorship
Collections
Show Collections
