At the international level, besides the right of reproduction within Article 9, Article 12 of the Berne Convention states that authors of literary or artistic works shall enjoy the exclusive right of authorising adaptations, arrangements and other alterations of their works. However, the systematic approach of the Berne Convention does not require Union countries to do the same.
As a result, there have remained significant differences in national laws as to whether adaptations and other transformations are to be regarded as forms of reproductions (as is the case, for instance, in France and The Netherlands), or whether they are subject to a separate right (as is the case, for instance, in Italy, Germany and the UK).
As regards EU copyright, the InfoSoc Directive [which - among other things - intended to implement into the EU legal order the WIPO Copyright Treaty, which requires compliance with Articles 1-21 Berne] does not contain any reference to the right of adaptation, which has been instead expressly harmonised in relation to databases [Article 5(b) of Directive 96/9/EC] and computer programs [Article 4(1)(b) of Directive 2009/24/EC].
Therefore, the main question is whether Member States have retained their competence to define the right of adaptation in respect of literary and artistic works [these are the only works subject to Berne right of adaptation and, as such, are the only subject-matter for which possible EU constraints might subsist] other than databases and computer programs, as well as its related exception(s) and limitation(s).