Copyright enforcement in the digital age: a post-ACTA view on the balancing of fundamental rights

The ratification process of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in the European Union has raised many (academic and non-academic) questions on various aspects of the enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPR), one of them being the relation between copyright enforcement and the fundamental rights of (alleged) infringers. In this article, we analyse this relation in the context of the existing European framework, with particular attention for the pertinent decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). We then assess whether the measures proposed in ACTA upset the balance set by the CJEU. While the rejection of ACTA by the European Parliament seems to relieve the most imminent threats, the review of the IPR Enforcement directive and other Commission initiatives, including bilateral agreements, should keep the discussion alive.