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xxii "2. The user prerogatives created by exceptions and limitations to copyright, fair use and fair dealing. These prerogatives are an integral part of the public domain. They ensure that there is sufficient access to our shared culture and knowledge, enabling the functioning of essential social institutions and enabling social participation of individuals with special needs."

Taken together, the public domain, the voluntary sharing of works and exceptions and limitations to copyright, fair use and fair dealing go a long way to ensure that everyone has access to our shared culture and knowledge in order to facilitate innovation and cultural participation for the benefit of the entire society. It is therefore important that the public domain in both its incarnations is actively maintained so that it can continue to fulfill this key role in this period of rapid technological and social change.

General Principles

In a period of rapid technological and social change the public domain fulfills an essential role in cultural participation and digital innovation, and therefore needs to be actively maintained. Active maintenance of the public domain needs to take into account a number of general principles. The following principles are essential to preserve a meaningful understanding of the public domain and to ensure that the public domain continues to function in the technological environment of the networked information society. With regard to the structural public domain these are as follows:

1. The public domain is the rule, copyright protection is the exception. Since copyright protection is granted only with respect to original forms of expression, the vast majority of data, information and ideas produced worldwide at any given time belongs to the public domain. In addition to information that is not eligible for protection, the public domain is enlarged every year by works whose term of protection expires. The combined application of the requirements for protection and the limited duration of the copyright protection contribute to the wealth of the public domain so as to ensure access to our shared culture and knowledge.

2. Copyright protection should last only as long as necessary to achieve a reasonable compromise between protecting and rewarding the author for his intellectual labour and safeguarding the public interest in the dissemination of culture and knowledge. From neither the perspective of the author nor the general public do any valid arguments exist (whether historical, economic, social or otherwise) in support of an exceedingly long term of copyright protection. While the author should be able to reap the fruits of his intellectual labour, the general public should not be