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The aim of the project is to highlight similarities and discrepancies between the legislative conditions of the book sectors in the various former communist countries.
The principle target users of this site are those who are attempting to achieve a better legislative framework for the creation and distribution of books in their respective countries: members of the book community, senior civil servants, politicians, cultural lobbyists, etc.
One of our objectives is to provide these activists with models in their endeavours: models to study and refer to, as well as to adapt to their own circumstances. We also welcome students, analysts and anyone who is curious about the legal background of the world of books in the new democracies. The structure of the site reflects the multiplicity of its objectives. More ...The material is arranged in two sets:
* According to the various issue areas. In some cases an initial attempt has been made for a comparative analysis. In others the reader finds short synopses of the state of an issue in a given country.
* The exact wording of the relevant laws is grouped by countries in English (and eventually also in the original language or in Russian). In order to prevent the reader from wandering and getting lost among the legal texts, only those sentences and words are picked out which directly refer to book publishing or distribution. All the rest is omitted. When this threatens the comprehensibility of the text, any necessary additions are included in italics.So far extracts have been collected from the following nineteen Eastern-Central European and Central Asian countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Georgia, Hungary, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Tajikistan, Ukraine and Yugoslavia. In a few cases, when the national contributions took the form of a comprehensive study, these are also available. These are: Bosnia, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia.
We found that three areas, freedom of publishing, limitation of that freedom and most of the copyright area, show smaller variations in merit than that which is to be found in the the remaining fields. All these countries are party to the major international conventions, which govern human rights and copyright and this is reflected in the homogeneity of their national legislation. Even some of the differences identified and presented here are purely linguistic. These result from the absence of a fully standardised international glossary of legal terms in general, and terms of publishing or copyright in particular. The English language in the translations that we have received from the various countries often raises doubts about their accuracy; nevertheless, we have only made corrections where errors were entirely evident.
This collection, which is meant to grow and be upgraded continually, should serve both legislators and their critics. It is only during the course of implementation that one can judge the strengths and weaknesses of the various laws. Therefore, we call upon users of these laws (publishers, lawyers, et al.) to report their experiences to us if the specific wording of their laws has had any significance at all.
Péter Inkei
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