Le «eccezioni e limitazioni» al diritto d’autore UE

The article aims at sketching the state of the art of exceptions and limitations in European copyright law. It provides a survey of the relevant provisions of EU law, in the light of the interpretative criteria imposed by the hierarchical relations between primary and secondary sources, and inferable also from the case law of the European Court of Justice. The analysis is in particular focused on the suitability of the current regulatory framework: (i) to promote an adequate level of harmonization of rules on exceptions and limitations in the EU Single Market, and (ii) to adapt itself flexibly to evolving exploitation techniques of copyrighted materials, connected to the digital and the online environment. This latter topic is related to one of the most controversial issue traditionally associated with the rules on exceptions and limitations: the admissibility of their extensive, and possibly analogical, interpretation.