He studied law at the University of Amsterdam (2005, cum laude) and Music Management at the Fontys Business College of Higher Education in Tilburg (1999). He specialised in intellectual property law and, in particular, in national and international copyright law. He has written various articles and book chapters on this topic.

He is secretary of the Dutch Copyright Committee that advises the Minister of Justice of the Netherlands on copyright-related matters. He is also a member of the editorial board of the Dutch copyright journal AMI (Tijdschrift voor Auteurs-, Media- & Informatierecht) and of the Study group on the history of copyright of the Dutch copyright organisation, Vereniging voor Auteursrecht (VvA).

At IViR, Stef is currently working as a postdoc researcher for the HERA project Of Authorship and Originality, for which he analyses the concept of original works of authorship ('The Work as Creative Expression'). 

At present, copyright is ‘automatic’. From the moment an original work is created, the author enjoys all the benefits that copyright protection entails, without the need to complete a registration, deposit the work, mark it with a copyright notice, or comply with any other statutorily prescribed formality. However, the digital revolution has caused a paradigm shift in the way copyright-protected works are created and consumed. Copyright law is now facing significant challenges arising from the need to establish legal certainty over copyright claims, improve rights clearance, and enhance the free flow of information. Inevitably, proposals to introduce formalities in copyright law (or reintroduce them, as the absence of formalities has not always been the norm) have risen to prominence in legal debate.

This book examines whether reintroducing copyright formalities is legally feasible. Based on a comprehensive and thorough analysis of copyright formalities, it sets out to establish the extent to which the current copyright system allows for their reintroduction. To this end, the author describes the role and functions of formalities, revisits the history of formalities at the national and international levels, examines the scope of the international prohibition on formalities, and scrutinizes the rationales behind this prohibition, including an in-depth examination of the validity of the argument that copyright is a ‘natural right’ and therefore should be protected independently of formalities.

The author skilfully evaluates and contrasts the conflicting theories according to which formalities, on the one hand, add legal certainty to claims on the ownership of property, and, on the other, hamper individual authors from seeking adequate protection for their works. This book makes an important contribution to legal science by answering questions that so far have been neglected or only marginally addressed. To the degree that current copyright law permits reintroducing formalities, the author posits the specifications that will determine to a great extent what role and functions they may eventually fulfil: depending on the aims to be achieved, lawmakers must choose which types of formalities shall be imposed, and what their legal consequences shall be. This book goes a long way towards reinforcing the foundation for those decisions.

24.08.2011

(with L. Guibault) Collective Management in the European Union, in Daniel Gervais (ed.), Collective Management of Copyright and Related Rights, second edition, Alphen aan den Rijn: Kluwer Law International, 2010, p. 135-167.

This chapter examines efforts to regulate the collective management of copyright at the European level. It is divided in three main parts. First, the chapter describes the current state of the law concerning collective rights management organizations (CMOs) in Europe, as pronounced over the past few decades in decisions of the European Court of Justice and the European Commission in competition matters. Second, the chapter discusses the recent efforts deployed by the European lawmakers toward the establishment of a legal framework governing the activities of CMOs in Europe, and more specifically the multi-territorial licensing of online music services. The third part analyses the actual and potential impact on the market for the cross-border collective management of legitimate online music services of the most recent measures adopted by the European bodies. The chapter critically concludes on the overall state of the law in Europe pertaining to CMOs.

13.07.2011

(with  M.M.M. van Eechoud, L. Guibault, B. van der Sloot & P.B. Hugenholtz) Report of the Netherlands for ALAI 2011 Study Days (Dublin).

19.05.2011

The archives of many television broadcasters now contain materiel which includes more than half a century of contemporary, documentary and entertainment history and are of immense cultural and economic value. Digitisation has created an entirely new technical basis for making these assets available to a wide audience, and there are a whole range of projects aimed at opening up audiovisual archives (including those of broadcasters). However, many projects to open up broadcasters' archives and exploit them online generally run up against serious problems when it comes to clearing the rights for these archived works. These problems arise, firstly, due to a contractual practice that developed in the pre-digital era and to aspects of copyright law that do not really meet the needs of the digital age. Secondly, the very large number of works stored in archives constitutes a challenge that is not easily overcome. The aim of this IRIS Special is to discuss the subject from a number of different perspectives. The team of authors involved is accordingly made up of representatives of many different interests: copyright holders and those who look after their interests, television broadcasters, lawyers and copyright experts.

See here for more information about this publication.

14.01.2011

Formalities in the digital era: an obstacle or opportunity?, in: L. Bently, U. Suthersanen & P. Torremans (eds.), Global Copyright: Three Hundred Years Since the Statute of Anne, from 1709 to Cyberspace, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar 2010, p. 395-424.

This paper, which was presented at the 2009 ALAI conference in London, examines the possible reintroduction of copyright formalities against the background of the challenges that copyright law faces in the digital era. It does so by contrasting the current calls for reintroducing formalities with the legal-historical reasons for their abolition. The paper concludes that, while, in the pre-digital era, the objections against copyright formalities were real, in the light of the changes caused by the advent of digital technologies, there is now sufficient reason to reconsider subjecting copyright to formalities.

20.10.2010

Les formalités sont mortes, vive les formalités! Copyright formalities and the reasons for their decline in nineteenth century Europe, in: R. Deazley, M. Kretschmer & L. Bently (eds.), Privilege and Property: Essays on the History of Copyright, Cambridge: Open Book Publishers 2010, pp. 157-206.

Modern copyright law is based on the premise that copyright originates from original authorship and exists independently from formalities. This was different in the past, when copyright law was fully occupied with formalities. This paper examines the development of copyright formalities against the background of the upcoming national rights thinking and some conceptual innovations in copyright law in nineteenth century Europe (France, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK). Among other things, this paper concludes that, from a historical perspective, formalities are not as incompatible with the natural rights view as is commonly believed. This may cast new light on the possible reintroduction of copyright formalities, which is increasingly called for in the current digital era.

01.09.2010

(with P.B. Hugenholtz) The Orphan Works Problem: The Copyright Conundrum of Digitizing Large-Scale Audiovisual Archives, and How to Solve it, Popular Communication - The International Journal of Media and Culture, 2010-1, p. 61-71.

This article examines the problem of 'orphan works' against the background of various projects for mass-digitization of audiovisual content. Orphan works are works for which the copyright owners cannot be identified or located. The fact that a particular work is 'orphaned' makes it impossible to clear the rights and to legally reutilize the work. This article describes and evaluates six different possible regulatory solutions to the orphan works problem, including extended collective licensing and compulsory licensing. The article concludes that if one wants to make the vast European audiovisual cultural heritage available for future usage, regulatory intervention is indispensable.

03.03.2010

13.10.2009

(with N. Helberger, N. Dufft & P.B. Hugenholtz) Never Forever: Why Extending the Term of Protection for Sound Recordings is a Bad Idea, European Intellectual Property Review, 2008-5, p. 174-181.

This article critically examines the arguments put forward in favour of a term extension of related rights of phonogram producers. The authors conclude that there are no convincing reasons to extend the existing term of protection. The article also explains why the popular argument that a term extension would improve the situation of performers is probably a fallacy.

04.06.2008

Unlocking the Potential of Pre-Existing Content: How to Address the Issue of Orphan Works in Europe?, IIC International Review of Intellectual property and Competition Law, Vol. 38 (2007), No. 6, p. 669-702.

04.06.2008

Audiovisual Archives and the Inability to Clear Rights in Orphan Works, IRIS plus (Supplement to IRIS - Legal Observations of the European Audiovisual Observatory), 2007-4.

There is also a German and French translation of this article.

This article deals with the question of 'orphan works', i.e., works whose right owners cannot be identified or located. The fact that a particular work is orphaned makes it impossible to clear the rights and to legally reutilise the work. To unlock the potential of the many pre-existing works stored in audiovisual archives, it is essential that legal solutions will be devised to adequately address this problem. This article examines and evaluates a number of solutions that could possibly be introduced at the European or national level.

20.04.2007

(with L. Guibault) Collective Management in the European Union, also published in: Daniel Gervais (ed.), Collective Management of Copyright and Related Rights, The Hague, Kluwer Law International, 2006, p. 117-152.

20.03.2007

(with P.B. Hugenholtz, M.M.M. van Eechoud et al.) The Recasting of Copyright & Related Rights for the Knowledge Economy, report to the European Commission, DG Internal Market, November 2006, 308 p.
See also the executive summary.

Study carried out by the Institute for Information Law for the European Commission (DG Internal Market). Chapters 1 and 2 describe and examine the existing 'acquis communautaire' in the field of copyright and related (neighbouring) rights, with special focus on inconsistencies and unclarities. Chapters 3-6 deal with distinct issues that were identified a priori by the European Commission as meriting special attention: possible extension of the term of protection of phonograms (Chapter 3), possible alignment of the term of protection of co-written musical works (Chapter 4), the problems connected to multiple copyright ownership, including the issue of 'orphan works' (Chapter 5), and copyright awareness among consumers (Chapter 6). Chapter 7 provides an overall assessment of the benefits and drawbacks of the fifteen years of harmonisation of copyright and related rights in the EU and dwells on regulatory alternatives.

10.01.2007

(with N. Helberger, N. Dufft, K. Kerényi, B. Krings, R. Lambers, C. Orwat and U. Riehm) ‘Digital Rights Management and Consumer Acceptability: A Multi-Disciplinary Discussion of Consumer Concerns and Expectations’, State-of-the-Art Report, INDICARE, December 2004.

03.02.2006

Updated 13.01.2012