Copyright law and the promotion of scientific networks: some reflections on the rules on co-authorship in the EU

In the digital era the co-creation of content by several authors has become easier in a number of ways. Networks, the symbol of today’s information society, are reshaping and supporting our communication, education, creativity and professional development. Embracing the prospective of co-creators, this paper aims to provide a new insight into the on-going debate on the effectiveness of copyright rules in the European Union (EU). The focus lies on the scientific sector, which offers both empirical evidence of the co-production phenomenon and specific policy goals set by the EU legislator with regard to collaborative knowledge production. The analysis shows how the EU copyright framework neither includes a comprehensive body of harmonized rules on co-authorship nor displays prospective plans to do so, while the related national regulations present highly diverging approaches. The paper highlights how the impact of this regulatory inhomogeneity is increasingly at odds with the policy objective of a collaborative and high-profile European Research Area, thus calling for a more substantial harmonization under an inclusive definition of co-author and an enhanced valorization of joint endeavours in the networked system of production of knowledge.