Re-using case law across Europe: legal barriers to be faced

The author analyses the problem of accessing online legal information in Europe starting from the work carried out in the context of the Caselex - Case Law Exchange project (Funded by European Commission). After a brief presentation of this initiative the attention is devoted to the study of existing legal barriers in data acquisition as well as to the analysis of legal barriers in data processing and legal barriers in data access. Conclusions are drawn together with an appendix on the staus quo of the European countries legislation on copyright.