Multimedia products as copyright works

This thesis deals with the issue whether multimedia products can be made to fit in one of the existing categories of copyright works. This thesis focuses on the 2nd generation of multimedia product, which feature integration and interactivty at a highly advanced level. The exercise is undertaken specifically in relation to literary works, compilations, databases, audiovisual works and computer programs. For those countries that do not consider classification a necessary prerequisite of copyright protection the issue whether and how multimedia products can be protected under the general category of copyright works is also examined. In this exercise of qualification the various consistencies as well as inconsistencies between multimedia products on the one hand and the existing categories of copyright works, their nature and their existing regimes of protection, on the other hand, are examined both at national (UK) and at international and comparative level.;The conclusion is reached that, although primitive forms of multimedia works can be protected either as databases or as audiovisual works, this is not always the case with the advanced forms of multimedia products. In relation to the latter there is a clear, absolute and immediate need for new legislation, which will take into account their particularities (especially the fact that they combine vast amounts of different expressions and data, integration (transformation) of this data and interactivity) and which will offer them a regime of protection tailored to their specific needs. This regime of protection is described as a mixture of the regime of protection for films and the sui generis regime for databases. The latter should, however, only apply to those multimedia products that are not capable of attracting copyright protection.