This suggestion can hardly come as any surprise given the fact that the large majority of the participants at both Conventions were 'author's rights countries, intent on ensuring that any compromises necessary to achieve agreement with the copyright countries did not undercut the basic philosophical underpinnings of their cherished notion of author s rights. It is equally unsurprising that the requirements of good diplomacy, intent on inducing more nations to join the Conventions and on ensuring the smooth operation of the instruments, have tended to minimize the differences while emphasizing the essential similarities of the two systems. The evidence of the texts and their history cannot however be rebutted by smooth talk alone. (25) From 1911, when the UK implemented the 1908 Berlin revision of the Berne Convention, the UK law has been structured to reflect the imperatives of that Convention and its periodic revisions Common law drafting style cannot obscure the substance of the law, which is in essence that of authors rights. Indeed, the Canadian Federal Court of Appeal(comprising, coincidentally, three civil law-trained judges) very recently said of Canada's current Copyright Act, which still bears the structural imprint of its former model, the Copyright Act 1911(UK), that Ithe use of the word 'copyright' in the English version of the Act has obscured the fact that what the Act fundamentally seeks to protect is'le droit d'auteur (26) The 'civilianising process has become even more evident and entrenched, now that TRIPs has incorporated the bulk of Berne and other Conventions negotiated in Bernes shadow. A civil lawyer today has certainly less trouble following and understanding the UK copyright law, than he or she has making head or he general law of property in the UK(whether north or south of the border) So any plaint that the UK copyright law has become too 'civilianised comes nearly a century too late. That process started irretrievably in 191 What, then, underlies the discontent in the outburst noted earlier in Part I? It lies, I suggest, in the notion espoused by the European Directives, made explicit in their recitals, that 'a high level of protection is needed for copyright and neighbouring rights to ensure the maintenance and development of creativity in the interests of authors, cultural industries consumers and society as a whole: (27)thatthat harmonisation up to the highest level within any member state should be the goal of European policy in this field This assertion, which logically leads to broad protection in perpetuity, lacks respectable empirical foundation, despite its instrumentalist claim. Indeed, the proposition that it is in the interests of consumers to continue to pay well above marginal cost for a product for perhaps 100 to 150 years after it was first produced, when the same product would have been produced under a regime withThis suggestion can hardly come as any surprise, given the fact that the large majority of the participants at both Conventions were 'author's rights' countries, intent on ensuring that any compromises necessary to achieve agreement with the 'copyright' countries did not undercut the basic philosophical underpinnings of their cherished notion of author's rights. It is equally unsurprising that the requirements of good diplomacy, intent on inducing more nations to join the Conventions and on ensuring the smooth operation of the instruments, have tended to minimize the differences while emphasizing the essential similarities of the two systems. The evidence of the texts and their history cannot however be rebutted by smooth talk alone.(25) From 1911, when the UK implemented the 1908 Berlin revision of the Berne Convention, the UK law has been structured to reflect the imperatives of that Convention and its periodic revisions. Common law drafting style cannot obscure the substance of the law, which is in essence that of authors' rights. Indeed, the Canadian Federal Court of Appeal (comprising, coincidentally, three civil law-trained judges) very recently said of Canada's current Copyright Act, which still bears the structural imprint of its former model, the Copyright Act 1911 (UK), that: [t]he use of the word 'copyright' in the English version of the Act has obscured the fact that what the Act fundamentally seeks to protect is 'le droit d'auteur'.(26) The 'civilianising' process has become even more evident and entrenched, now that TRIPs has incorporated the bulk of Berne and other Conventions negotiated in Berne's shadow. A civil lawyer today has certainly less trouble following and understanding the UK copyright law, than he or she has making head or tail of the general law of property in the UK (whether north or south of the border). So any plaint that the UK copyright law has become too 'civilianised' comes nearly a century too late. That process started irretrievably in 1911. V What, then, underlies the discontent in the outburst noted earlier in Part I? It lies, I suggest, in the notion espoused by the European Directives, made explicit in their recitals, that 'a high level of protection' is needed for copyright and neighbouring rights to ensure 'the maintenance and development of creativity in the interests of authors, cultural industries, consumers and society as a whole';(27) that that harmonisation up to the highest level within any member state should be the goal of European policy in this field. This assertion, which logically leads to broad protection in perpetuity, lacks respectable empirical foundation, despite its instrumentalist claim. Indeed, the proposition that it is in the interests of consumers to continue to pay well above marginal cost for a product for perhaps 100 to 150 years after it was first produced, when the same product would have been produced under a regime with