Adopting the format of a paper and round-tables, the one-day symposium Copyright at the Crossroads: On-line Licensing and Private Copying will bring together representatives from some of the entities that play a fundamental role in the design and exercise of the intellectual property regime currently in force. They will talk about three specific issues: the Creative Commons licences; the management of on-line music; and the private copy regime.

During the last years, the Creative Commons project, which has enjoyed good popular acclaim, has brought the exercise of intellectual property closer not only to authors, but also to users, and it has begun to put into question some of the traditional principles of the intellectual property regime, which has prompted a reflection on how this regime should be like in this digital era. In fact, digital technology allows us – indeed, compels us – to rethink some of the statements and axioms of copyright that seemed to have become consolidated down the centuries; for instance, the role of management entities versus opportunities of direct licences between authors and users; the actual concept of exploitation (versus the concept of use); the goodness of the overwhelming protection of the technological measures that international and national (even penal) norms guarantee to rights holders; the survival of the concept of private copy in the digital context; and, in general, the balance between protection of private and public interests through a system of exceptions and compensation.