Most Recent Amendments to Hungarian Copyright Law

Abstract

Hungary has always been keen on following the international trends of copyright law. The Hungarian Parliament has ratified most of the multinational treaties on this matter (that is, the Berne Convention, the Rome Convention, the Geneva Convention, the Universal Copyright Convention, TRIPS Agreement, the WCT and the WPPT, and most recently the Beijing Treaty) and has followed the European Union legislation precisely (even before joining the EU in 2004). The previous few years were quite busy in copyright law, Member States of the European Union had to constantly harmonize, change or supplement their domestic regulations in light of the several new or amended directives. In the past two years, the Hungarian Parliament accepted three different statutes that modified the Hungarian Copyright Act or affected the copyright system in other ways (like through the introduction of the new Hungarian Criminal Code). Another bill is proposed by the government and a mid-term strategic plan has also been prepared by the Ministry of Public Administration and Justice (hereinafter referred to as Ministry). The present emerging issues analysis introduces the most important elements of these recent achievements, and criticizes the instruments, where necessary.

Keywords: Hungary, copyright law, orphan works, collective rights management, Jedlik Plan, criminal law, reforms

JEL Classification: K00, K14, K19