Category Regional Fora

Civil Society letter on the Article 17 implementation guidance

Earlier today 27 (update 16-09-2020: 30) civil society organisations sent a joint letter to Commissioner Breton summarising our responses to the Article 17 guidance consultation that closed last week... The letter expresses concerns that the proposed Article 17 guidance endorses the use of automated content blocking by online services even though it is clear that this will lead to the violation of fundamental rights. It also warns that implementations of Article 17 based on the proposed guidance will violate established principles of EU law.

Commission consultation on Article 17 guidance: User rights must be protected at upload

[Paul Keller] At the end of July the Commission published a long awaited “targeted consultation addressed to the participants to the stakeholder dialogue on Article 17 of the CDSM Directive“. With this consultation the Commission makes good on its (pre-covid) promise to “share initial views on the content of the Article 17 guidance” with the participants of the stakeholder dialogue. Nestled in-between 18 questions, the consultation document provides a detailed outline of what the Commission’s guidance could look like once it is finalised. While we have been rather sceptical after the end of the six meetings of the stakeholder dialogue meetings, we are pleased to see that the initial views shared by the Commission express a genuine attempt to find a balance between the protection of user rights and the interests of creators and other rightholders, which reflects the complex balance of the provisions introduced by Article 17 after a long legislative fight.

Uneducating Copyright – Member States Can Choose Between ‘Full Legal Certainty’ and Patchworked Licensing Schemes for Digital and Cross-Border Teaching Activities

Author: Bernd Justin Jütte Abstract: The Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market supplements the existing exception for teaching of the Information Society Directive. The new exception focuses on digital and cross-border teaching, but fails to provide a legal…

European Commission Trade Policy Review Includes a Request for Comments on The Digital Transition and Technological Development

Thanks to Ante Wessels for calling to my attention to an EU Trade Policy Review, which aims "to build a consensus around a fresh medium-term direction for EU trade policy, responding to a variety of new global challenges and taking into account the lessons learned from the coronavirus crisis." The review includes a request for comments from the public, with submissions due September 15.

Copyright Directive – Implementation – July news

[Natalia Mileszyk] Last month, we held the first edition of our Copyright Directive Webinars, aimed at explaining the different provisions of the new Copyright Directive and making suggestions on what to advocate for during the implementation process of those provisions at a national level, to expand and strengthen user rights. We’ve now released the presentations and video recordings of the webinars. As you know, many countries are now speeding up with the process of implementation of the Directive – you can find below a short summary of what’s going on.

Regulating Technology Through Copyright Law: A Comparative Perspective

[Pamela Samuelson] The EU's recently adopted DSM Directive marks a break after 30-some years of general convergence in the way EU and US copyright laws have regulated digital technologies. Given the differences in underlying rationales for IP rights and in the legal cultures of the EU and US, the two might pursue divergent paths going forward, particularly in respect of ISP liability and press publisher rules.

How Filters fail (to meet the requirements of the DSM directive)

[Paul Keller] Article 17 of the DSM directive establishes that Online Content Sharing Service Providers (OCSSPs) are liable for copyright infringing uploads by their users unless they either obtain a license for the use of such content, or take a number of measures designed to prevent the availability of such content on their platforms. While the directive never explicitly talks about filters or automated content recognition (ACR) systems, it is assumed by all sides of the debate that, in order to meet this obligation, platforms have little choice but to implement ACR-based filtering systems that will scan all user uploads and block or remove uploads that contain works that have been flagged by their rightholders.

Communia Association Copyright Directive Webinars

[Natalia Mileszyk] The process of implementation of the new Copyright Directive is speeding up in various countries (see our Implementation Tracker). Therefore, COMMUNIA has decided to organize a series of webinars aimed at explaining the different provisions of the new Copyright Directive and making suggestions on what to advocate for during the implementation process of those provisions at the national level, to expand and strengthen user rights. The Copyright Directive Webinars are aimed at local advocates and national policymakers and will be conducted by COMMUNIA members and experts that were involved in preparing our Implementation Guidelines. We will hold four webinars of one hour each, as follows.

Our DSM Implementation Tracker Is Out

[Teresa Nobre] Today we are launching our new DSM Directive Implementation Tracker. These tracking pages aim to provide information on the status of the implementation of the new Copyright Directive in all EU Member States. The information contained in each country page was collected by local organisations and individuals in each country and/or from public sources. This tracker is part of a wider implementation project of COMMUNIA and its members Centrum Cyfrowe and Wikimedia, which includes a range of activities (including our DSM Directive Implementation Guidelines) to make sure that local communities in as many Member States as possible are aware of their national legislative processes and participate in those processes.

WIPO Nominates Daren Tang as New Director General

[International Federation of Library Associations] The UN agency that manages the global intellectual property system – including copyright – has nominated a new Director General. As the current Chair of the organisation’s copyright committee – and as a modernising reformer nationally – he will bring a strong awareness of the needs of libraries to the role.

ARIPO Model Copyright Law: How Does It Score?

[Electronic Information for Libraries] In October 2019, the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) released a new Model Law on Copyright and Related Rights. EIFL reviewed the ARIPO Model Law against EIFL’s ‘Core Library Exceptions Checklist’ that sets out provisions that every copyright law should have to support modern library activities and services.

Germany sets bad example with the proposed implementation of the new education exception

[Teresa Nobre] A few weeks ago, the German government shared its proposal for the implementation of some of the provisions of the new Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive, including the new EU education exception (Article 5 in the final version of the Directive). Similarly to what we did with the Dutch proposal, we will provide here an overview of the German proposal to implement locally the new exception. This is part of our effort to track how countries across Europe implement this mandatory exception to copyright for educational purposes.