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30 relevant European policy decisions should be compelled to conform to the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions’ obligations. In this regard, a recent study on the state of the implementation of the Convention in Europe noted that, while some copyright is necessary, too much copyright is detrimental to diversity of cultural expression. Diversity of cultural expression is particularly threatened by intellectual property rights “in markets that are dominated by big corporations exercising collective power as oligopolies”. Cultural conglomerates deepen their market dominance through horizontal and vertical integration. The high degree of control over the entire distribution process in a number of different areas of cultural output makes it possible to run any alternative, non-infringing creative material out of the market. As a consequence, global media and entertainment oligopolies will impose an homogenising effect on local culture. Fiona Macmillan argues that cultural filtering, homogenisation and the loss of the public domain have exacerbated the “dysfunctional relationship between copyright and cultural diversity”.

In particular, public domain enclosure and copyright expansion are very pernicious for the diversity and decentralisation of modern forms of peer information production: