On Author, Copyright and Originality: does the unified EU originality standard correspond to the digital reality in Wikipedia?

Abstract

This article is contributing to the future of copyright law debate by exploring the recently harmonised originality standard in the EU copyright law and its suitability to a creative sharing community of Wikipedia. It shows that the “free creative choices” and “author’s personal” touch criteria established by the CJEU might be unsuitable not only because of practical concerns, but also because the understanding of “author” they are based on does not match the understanding possessed by Wikipedia community. The concepts of author (or rather author and Wikipedian) are compared through three key elements: author’s relationship with work, author’s relationship with others and presumptions about author’s personality and creative process.