The ECJ handed down its decisions on Belgium (18 November 2004, C-143/04) Finland (9 December 2004, C-56/04) and Sweden (18 November 2004, C-91/04).

The 2001 Copyright Directive (2001/29/EC) on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society was due to be implemented by the Member States by 22 December 2002. Only Greece and Denmark met the implementation deadline. By July 2003 eleven Member States had still failed. When Member States have completely missed the deadline and continue to fail after the Commission has sent them "reasoned opinions" with new shorter deadlines, the legal procedure in these cases is quite straightforward. Finland did not give the Court any explanations. Belgium claimed the delay was due to legislative procedure caused by Federal elections and Sweden argued their legislative procedure was complicated since complete review of copyright law was needed. These excuses did not attract the sympathy of the Court. The result was identical in all three cases. The Court declared that the Member States had failed to communicate measures transposing into their national law the provisions of the Directive. The Member States were ordered to pay the costs.

The next step for the Commission is to ask the Court to impose daily fines on the relevant Member States until they comply. Cases against France, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom are still pending. Although the UK has implemented the Directive it does not satisfy the Commission, as the UK law does not apply to the territory of Gibraltar.

The 2001 Copyright Directive includes many controversial provisions relating to modern problems of digital environment. New digital rights management measures and responsibilities of the service providers have not been easily presented to national parliaments. Though the issues are difficult and the Member States were only given a short time of 18 months , another two years have now passed. It is perhaps time that the Commission step up its enforcement programme against the Member States.

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