Greek Copyright Law Case Study

i) General characteristics

The main goal of the Greek copyright law is to protect the author against unauthorized copying and exploitation. Thus, it gives to the authors a financial incentive to continue to create, and particularly independently from any patrons. The professional exploitation of such rights entitles the holder on the one hand to write off the relevant costs of work and capital and on the other hand to make a reasonable profit out of it. Furthermore, the increase of the creativity leads to the cultural development of the country which is in favor of its society. Additionally, the economy is supported through the profitability of cultural enterprises.

The Greek Copyright Act is the basic source of intellectual property

The above criterion, which prevails in Greek case law, means that, under similar circumstances and with the same objectives, no author would, in reasonable probability, create a similar work because every human inspiration and creativity is unique and reflects the personality of its author. However, it is also argued that the criterion of originality should be disconnected from the author’s personality and value judgments which are underpinned by this concept, because this is contrary to the principle of evaluative neutrality underlying all copyright law. Additionally it is difficult to be estimated by Greek courts. Furthermore, statistical uniqueness is not enough for a work to be qualified as an original one. The work must additionally have certain creative height, namely the minimum threshold of creative input required to distinguish a work from other works of everyday life or even other similar works. Both criteria show an individualized bond with the

2 par. 4), that governs the whole Greek Copyright Law, the value of a work is of no importance for its copyright protection. That means that, first of all, a work may be protected despite its illegal character or its anethical content. Even the derivative work that offences the copyright protection of a preexisting work may be protected by copyright law. However, the exploitation of such works may be prohibited or restricted by other, strange to the copyright, legal provisions. Furthermore, the aesthetic or artistic value of a work does not play any role when deciding its protection. However, judging for declaring or denying the originality of a work involves inevitably some kind of evaluation. This principle has, however, many deviations because many times the court judgement is based on less or more evaluation. A work is copyright protected regardless of the purpose or the reason for its creation, namely whether it is livelihood, promotional, charitable, practical or purely for art. Thus, a work may be protected when except from its aesthetic destination serves practical purposes as well. This assumption by the legislator is very critical for the works of applied arts. Despite the clear wording of the above rule, the legislator chose to explicitly include the case of the applied arts in the otherwise indicative list of protected