ABSTRACT
This chapter clarifies the terminology behind the concept culture industries by briefly elaborating on its origin and by following its subsequent developments to its entry into the realm of law. It presents a short overview of the historical development of the legal schism between culture and trade at the international level. The chapter takes the current constitutional debate about the future of Europe as an opportunity to tackle the regulatory challenges posed by the complex and multifaceted nature of the culture industries. Deriving from an analysis of the international legal order as well as three different stages of European integration: the culture industries as a critique of our fragmented regulatory approaches and as a reminder for the growing need of bringing concerns of culture and of industry closer. The chapter focuses on the basis of an optimum coherent legal order which ideally is one of a constitutional nature where apparently divergent interests and positions are balanced against each other.
