Author Archives: Communia Association

DSM Directive implementation update: more proposals to protect users’ rights

Gennaro
Five months to go ...
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The implementation deadline for the Copyright in the Digital Single Market is a mere five months ahead of us. On the 7th of June, the EU Member States are expected to have implemented the 2019 update of the EU copyright rules. With less than half a year to go, it is looking increasingly unlikely that more than a small handful of Member States will manage to implement the new provisions by the deadline. In this post, we are taking stock of the implementation process focussing on what has changed since our update from a month ago. 

While the past month included the holiday break, there have still been some significant developments. This included the first member state to have completed the implementation process (the Netherlands) and the first Member state to throw in the towel and officially announce that the implementation process will only be concluded after the implementation deadline (Denmark). But before we look at these developments in more detail, let’s first have a look at the discussions surrounding the implementation of Article 17.

There has been no further progress on the Commission’s Article 17 implementation guidance. Originally expected to be presented in the second half of 2020, there is no sign of them yet. So far the Commission has not even managed to publish the responses to the consultation that was concluded in September 2020.

More Member States commit to protecting users’ rights.

With no clear timeline for the Commission guidelines, more and more Member States have given up waiting and are presenting their implementation ideas for Article 17. In early December the Austrian Ministry of Justice circulated a first proposal for implementing Article 17 among stakeholders for feedback (see our joint response with epicenter.works and SaveTheInternet Austria here). This proposal takes up a number of key elements of the previous German proposals (direct remuneration right for creators, the ability to pre-flag uploads as legitimate, a threshold that protects minor uses from automated blocking, and the ability for users’ organizations to act against structural overblocking) and fits them into a more traditional approach: Where the German legislator proposes to implement the Article 17 provisions in a separate law, the Austrian proposal would integrate the provisions into the body of the existing copyright act. 

In Germany, the discussion about the implementation proposal is still ongoing: Seemingly in response to pressure from the rightsholders and platforms (channeled via other ministries controlled by the CDU) the Ministry of Justice has retracted one of the most controversial elements of its implementation proposal: A new leaked version of the proposal (dated 22 November) is missing the controversial “de minimis” exception that would have legalized uses of works shorter than 20 seconds of audio or video or 1000 characters of text. However, the same thresholds are now part of a new mechanism that protects “presumably legitimate uses” as long as they do not exceed 50% of an original work and combine the matched work with other material. While much weaker than a standalone exception, this mechanism would still ensure that many forms of user-uploaded creative expression could not be automatically blocked. 

Continue reading →

Communia fights for more room for right to research in international copyright law

Optocht van professoren
Promoting access to knowledge for all
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Access to knowledge is essential to ensure inclusivity and equality of our societies, particularly in the digital age. Researchers and the institutions that serve them are struggling to perform their activities at a distance, due to outdated copyright frameworks that do not properly balance all the rights that are deemed fundamental to our societies. It is time to abandon the rhetoric that copyright exceptions that support access to knowledge activities will harm authors and the industries that depend on them. 

For the next three years, Communia will be working on a project to study and promote changes in international copyright law to ensure equity in the production of and access to research. Our aim is to promote effective change in the political discourse towards the adoption of an international legal framework that protects legitimate access to knowledge.

We will work with a broad range of partners representing researchers and the institutions that serve them, including our Communia members Creative Commons and Wikimedia Deutschland. Our activities will include producing research, provide training to a global network of change makers, and connect a global expert network to a global community of researchers, libraries, museums, archives, and digital rights activists active in international copyright policy making.

The project will be run by the American University Washington College of Law (AUWCL), through its Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property (PIJIP), and will benefit from a grant from Arcadia, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin.

Read more about the project here.

How Hungary has quick-fix implemented Article 5 of the DSM directive

Jakobs ladder
Taking care of what matters the most
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This blogpost is part of a series of blogposts where we track how EU Member States are adapting their national laws to the requirements of Article 5 of the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive (DSM directive), which sets new minimum standards for the digital and cross-border use of copyright materials in education. So far we have published analysis of the Dutch and the German proposals. Today, we provide an overview of the Hungarian new education exception by Mónika Trombitás Andersson. This overview focusses on the substance of the new exception; for critical perspective on the legislative procedure see here.

Fast implementation of the new exception to permit remote teaching during COVID-19

Just as in several other EU Member States, in Hungary as well the stakeholder consultations regarding the implementation of the DSM Directive are still ongoing. Yet, the provisions set out in Article 5, namely those concerning the use of works in digital and cross-border teaching activities, have already been implemented and the relevant amendments to the Hungarian Copyright Act (No. LXXVI of 1999) came into effect on 18th July 2020. The reason? Urgent need for modern copyright rules enabling schools to swiftly transition into distance education during the COVID-19 pandemic and distribute learning material digitally.Continue reading →

DSM Directive implementation update: six months to go and no end in sight

December
MS still tying to make sense out of Art 17
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According to Article 26 of the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive, Member States have until the 7th of June 2021 to implement the provisions of the Directive into their national laws. This leaves member states exactly 6 months to implement the directive and so it is time to take stock of the implementation status in various Member States. 

So far not a single EU Member State has fully implemented the provisions of the Directive and only two Member States have implemented parts of it (In 2019 France implemented the new press publishers’ right and in June of this year Hungary implemented the exception for online educational use). In most of the EU Member States implementing legislation still needs to be introduced into parliament. In the meantime, the European Commission is still working on the implementation guidance for Article 17 that it is required to publish, and the Polish government’s request to annul parts of Article 17 is still under deliberation in the Court of Justice of the European Union (the Advocate General will publish its opinion on the 22nd of April 2021 less than two months before the end of the implementation deadline). All in all it looks increasingly unlikely that most Member States will implement the Directive in time. So let’s take a more detailed look at where the implementation process stands in key Member States. 

Commission’s Guidance

The European Commission closed its targeted consultation on the implementation guidance in September and is currently working on a final version of its guidance that is not expected to be adopted before early next year. The Commission has made it clear that it does not expect key elements of the guidance to substantially change from its earlier draft, which is designed to limit the use of automated filters and requires that user uploads remain available while they are under dispute It seems that the Commission is unwilling to bow to the considerable pressure from some Member States and from rightholders to change key elements of the draft guidance. Continue reading →

Implementation update: French Parliament gives carte blanche, while the Netherlands correct course.

Le Francois L'Hollandois
Dutch parliament strengthens user rights
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Back in January of this year, we noted how both the Netherlands and France (at that point the only Member States that had presented proposals to implement Article 17) had proposed selective implementations of Article 17 that ignored crucial user rights safeguards. A lot has happened since January, but yesterday both Member States took further steps in their national implementations. And this time the two Member States are moving in opposite directions: 

While the Dutch government has reacted to criticism from civil society and members of Parliament by fixing some of the most obvious shortcomings of its implementation law, the 2nd chamber of the French Parliament has adopted a law that gives the French government the power to implement Article 17 (and the rest of the provisions of the DSM directive) however it sees fit. 

Netherlands: a course correction

Back in July of 2019, the Netherlands were the first country to propose an implementation law of the DSM directive. Somewhat surprisingly (the Netherlands had been one of the most vocal opponents of Article 17 in the Council) the proposed implementation law did not make any efforts to protect user rights and omitted most of the user rights safeguards contained in the final version of Article 17. After the proposal was sent to Parliament in June this year, together with Bits of Freedom and others we pointed out these shortcomings to the members of the legal affairs committee. Yesterday, in response to questions from members of the legal affairs committee, the government conceded that its original implementation proposal was incomplete and added the missing user rights safeguards to the proposal for an implementation law. Continue reading →

Article 17 guidance: Don’t shoot the messenger / ne pas tirer sur le messager!

David geeft opdracht om de man te doden die Saul de genadestoot gaf Sauls dootslager gestraft
Strengthening user rights is part of Article 17
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Yesterday Politico published the response submitted by the French Government to the Commission’s stakeholder consultation on the article 17 implementation guidance. For anyone who has followed the French position in the debate about Article 17, the response (see here for an english language “courtesy translation”) will not be very surprising. The French reaction rejects the majority of what the Commission is proposing and questions and accuses the Commission of reversing the progress that (according to the French government) has been made with the adoption of Article 17 in early 2019. This position is largely aligned with the grievances expressed by a coalition of rightholders organisations in their recent letter to Commissioner Breton and it is consistent with the way France is implementing Article 17 in its national law (next week the Assemblée nationale will vote on a law that will authorise the French Government to implement the provisions of the DSM directive by decree). 

Unfortunately, it is also based on a flawed understanding of the issue at hand. Since the French authorities note in their reaction that they “will carefully consider stakeholders’ responses and are open to continued discussions so that future guidance may play their concrete technical role with regards to the correct application of article 17”, it is necessary to clear up some of the misunderstandings here.

Misrepresenting Article 17

The constant references, on the side of rightholders and from the French government, to the “original objective”, “goal” or “spirit” of the directive try to mask the fact that the actual text of the directive is not as clear-cut as rightsholders and the French government would like it to be. The fact is that, in between its introduction (as Article 13) in 2016 and its adoption (as Article 17) in 2019, the provisions dealing with the “Use of protected content by online content-sharing service providers” have undergone substantial changes. 

What was proposed as a relatively simple intervention to strengthen the position of rightholders vis-à-vis content sharing platforms by changing the liability position of said platforms, has – following intense criticism from academia, civil society and internet users – been transformed into a convoluted legal regime that serves a number of conflicting objectives. Article 17 now includes strong language that establishes new user rights and provides meaningful safeguards for preserving these rights. These additions to the article were essential in securing its adoption by the EU legislator. As a result, in the final version of the article, the original objective of strengthening the position of rightholders is just one of a number of objectives. 

By now it seems clear that in their fierce determination to get the new copyright directive adopted, many of the supporters of the original proposal have failed to notice that the final legislative compromise had morphed into an article that is fundamentally different from what was originally proposed. In supporting the final compromise of Article 17, rightholders and the French government have in fact supported provisions that go against their long established positions. Continue reading →

Civil Society letter on the Article 17 implementation guidance

De briefschrijfster
Guidance must aim to protect users' rights!
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Earlier today 27 (update 17-09-2020: 32) civil society organisations sent a joint letter to Commissioner Breton summarising our responses to the Article 17 guidance consultation that closed last week. In addition to organisations participating in the stakeholder dialogue, the letter has also received support from a broad coalition of digital and human rights organisations from across Europe. 

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.

In this context the letter highlights the need for meaningful safeguards for legitimate uses of content uploaded to online platforms, and stresses the need for a robust redress mechanism for users. Summarising the consultation responses submitted by the various signatories, the letter highlights the importance of ensuring that uploads that are not manifestly infringing must remain online until a human review has taken place. The letter further stresses the importance of involving users’ organisations when setting technical parameters that are used to determine if an upload is manifestly infringing or not. 

The letter further highlights the need for full transparency of (automated) content removals and the ability for users (and user organisations on their behalf) to take actions against the abuse of the measures introduced by Article 17 of the DSM directive.

Finally, the letter also expresses support for the Commission’s clarification that Article 17 constitutes a “lex specialis” to the provisions of the InfoSoc Directive which provides Member States with maximum flexibility to include user rights preserving authorisation mechanisms in their national legislation.

You can read the full letter including the list of signatories here.

A step in the right direction: Our response to the targeted consultation on the Article 17 guidance

A woman shouting into a man's ear-trumpet
Thanks for listening!
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Yesterday we submitted our response to the European Commission’s targeted consultation on the Article 17 guidance. As we have explained previously, with this consultation the Commission was seeking feedback on its initial ideas for the Article 17 implementation guidance, which the Commission intends to publish before the end of the Year. The document is intended to provide Member States with guidance on how to balance the conflicting requirements of Article 17 (preventing copyright infringements while ensuring that legal uses are not affected) when implementing it in their national legislations.

As we said in our initial analysis, we were very happy to note a clear commitment of the Commission to maintain the delicate legislative balance of Article 17 that reflected many of the constructive contributions that have been made by stakeholders across the spectrum during the dialogues. In general, we consider the Commission’s proposal a step in the right direction and this is reflected in our response to the consultation. Unsurprisingly, organisations representing rightholders have a completely different reaction to the proposal and have already started a campaign to convince the Commission into abandoning its approach. Continue reading →

Video recording of the COMMUNIA Salon on the German proposal to implement Article 17

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Last week on Thursday we held the third virtual edition of our COMMUNIA Salon. This edition focussed on the recent German proposal to implement Article 17 of the DSM Directive and included contributions by John Henrik Weitzmann (Wikimedia Deutschland), Julia Reda (Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte), Martin Husovec (London School of Economics) and Paul Keller (COMMUNIA). If you have missed the event you can watch a recording of the presentations and the subsequent discussion here:

COMMUNIA Salon 2020/3: The German proposal to implement Article 17 – A broken promise or a way forward?

COMMUNIA Salon 2020/3: The German proposal to implement Article 17Licentie
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On Thursday, the 2nd of July, we will be organising the next edition of our virtual COMMUNIA Salon to discuss the new German implementation proposal for Article 17 of the DSM directive. For this event we will be joined by Julia Reda (Project lead control © at the GFF and former MEP), John Hendrik Weitzmann (General Counsel at Wikimedia Deutschland) and Dr. Martin Husovec (Assistant Professor, Department of Law, London School of Economics). 

As we have written in our initial reaction, the German proposal is the first serious attempt by a member state to implement Article 17 of the directive in a way that preserves the precarious balance between the rights of users and creators. Where previous implementation proposals have limited themselves to (selectively) transposing the provisions of the directive, the German Ministry of Justice has presented a proposal that adds a number of interesting (and potentially controversial) additional provisions, which seem to be designed to strengthen the position of both users and individual creators. These include the addition of a remunerated de-minimis exception intended to safeguard common types of so-called “user generated content”, the ability for uploaders to “pre-flag” legitimate uses of protected works in their uploads, and the addition of a direct remuneration rights intended to ensure that individual creators benefit from the new legal regime.

With this proposal the German government presents an alternative vision for how Article 17 could work in practice, which could serve as a model for other member states when implementing the directive. During our Salon we will hear first reactions from civil society stakeholders and analyse the legal underpinnings of the more innovative elements of the proposal, such as the proposed de-minimis exception. The presentations will be followed by an informal question and answer session.

The Salon is open for everyone to attend and will be held on Zoom. Join us on Thursday, the 2 of July, at 1530 CET, by registering here. Registered participants will receive login information ahead of the event.