Volume 31, Issue 3

This article gives a brief introduction to the Danish copyright system and focuses in particular on copying within libraries and copying for the purpose of interlibrary loans.

Data protection and information privacy are essential parts of lex informatica. The purpose of legal rules is to sustain a modern development and adjustment of the fundamental right to privacy, taking the realities of the information society into consideration. The aim is to protect the individual against misuse of personal information that may violate the private sphere and simultaneously to protect against surveillance with the purpose of governing behavior. Privacy protection is furthermore important, since personal information, which always has had economic value to a much larger degree, has become a commodity today. There are many reasons sustaining data protection, and legal regulation is very broad covering all parts of society. Merely a fragment of this issue is being considered in the following.

Government Policy on Matters of the Information Society While information technology has for a long time been utilized in public administration in Iceland, co-ordination and policy formulation only started in the mid-nineties. In 1996, the government made arrangements for a comprehensive policy formulation in this field, when the government formulated a specific policy on matters of the information society and established a provisional developmental project for this purpose under the direction of a special working group under the auspices of the Prime Minister's Office. While the project was to be completed within five years, from 1998 to 2002, it was decided at the beginning of this year to extend it to the end of the year 2003 while an appraisal of its implementation was carried out. Among the goals set in the governmental policy was that legislation, rules and the working methods of the public administration should be reviewed with a view to information technology, for the purpose of stimulating technological progress, and to make information accessible to the public irrespective of residence or economic resources. Furthermore, a special emphasis was put on the utilization of information technology in the dissemination of public information, and that all information systems used by government agencies should be structured so that they would provide information on laws, regulations, rights and obligations, and such matters, via a computer network, and also enable the public to go about their business, monitor the progress of important matters, and be provided with all such services which can be provided in this manner.

This article is intended to be a guide for researchers who seek information in English about Swedish intellectual property law. It should be stated at the outset that it is not possible to thoroughly research Swedish law by only consulting works published in English. Considerable information exists in English, but it is selective in coverage and often does not reflect recent developments. Despite these limitations, the English language sources discussed in this guide will provide a useful foundation from which to consult experts in the field.

Every night for ten nights last May, I returned to room 128 in the Westside YMCA (West 63 rd Street, New York City — just off Central Park) armed with more behind the scenes insights, professional secrets and first hand accounts of US law library operation and management than one slim A5 notebook could hope to hold. I was fortunate to be in the United States on a two-week placement at Columbia University, visiting some of America's great law libraries — the law school libraries of Columbia itself, New York University and Yale University. Each morning after an orange juice, toasted cream cheese bagel and cappuccino, I would head out with the commuters to join the subway at Columbus Circle — uptown for Columbia or downtown for NYU. Every evening I would admire the energy of the mostly silver-haired athletes in brightly colored lycra returning to the Westside “Y” after numerous circuits of the Jackie “O” reservoir on the upper east side of Central Park. The park is 843 acres of creative space bound by impressive hotels, apartment blocks and the streets of Harlem. In May it is in perpetual motion from dawn to dusk with joggers, roller-bladers and cyclists weaving their way around the trees, fountains and numerous statues. Indeed it appears to be a huge magic garden, complete with beautiful street lamps that seem to come from C.S. Lewis's Narnia — another world, like the City itself, at once familiar and fascinatingly different.