Along the road to uniformity: diverse readings of the Court of Justice judgments on copyright works

For a long time, EU law's impact on the meaning of copyright work seemed limited to software and databases. But recent judgments of the CJEU (Infopaq, BSA, Football Association [Murphy], Painer) suggest we have entered an era of harmonization of copyright subject matter after decades of focus on the scope of exclusive rights and their duration. Unlike before, however, it is the Court and not the legislator that takes centre stage in shaping pivotal concepts. This article reviews the different readings and criticisms evoked by the recent case law on copyright works in legal doctrine across the EU. It puts them in the wider perspective of the on-going-development towards uniform law and the role of the preliminary reference procedure in that process.