Video recording from last weeks COMMUNIA salon

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Last week Monday, on the first anniversary of the entry into force of the Copyright in the DSM Directive, we held the first virtual edition of our COMMUNIA Salon. During the event we presented an overview of the implementation status in the EU member states, zoomed in (sic!) on various legislative proposals to implement Articles 15 and 17 of the Directive and discussed ways to challenge parts of the Directive via the legal system. If you have missed the event you can watch a recording of the presentations and the subsequent discussion here: 

The event was kicked off by Teresa Nobre who launched the COMMUNIA implementation tracker and presented an overview of the implementation in the EU member states. While France has already implemented the press publishers right, the majority of EU member states are still in various stages of consultation. One year after the entry into force of the Directive, only Belgium, Croatia, France, Germany, Hungary and the Netherlands have put forward legislative proposals. Continue reading →

COMMUNIA Salon: Copyright in the DSM Directive – one year after

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The Copyright in the Digital Single Market (CDSM) Directive went into effect on the 18th of May 2019. During the COMMUNIA salon we will be given an update on the implementation status in the EU member states and the discussions at the European Commission’s stakeholder dialogue on the implementation of Article 17 of the directive. Join us on Monday the 18th of May 2020 from 1530h – 1700h (Brussels time) for a series of short presentations and an informal question and answer session.

While the focus of most policy makers is on the current health emergency, the implementation of the CDSM directive is ongoing. Member states have until the 7th of June 2021 to implement the divisive and complex rules contained in the directive.

A year after the entry into force of the directive a messy picture has emerged. In France, which has already implemented the press publishers right, that implementation has led to an intervention of the competition authority. The Polish government has challenged parts of Article 17 in the CJEU arguing that it violates fundamental rights. And while some Member States have published legislative proposals for the implementation of the directive, most Member States are still holding formal and informal consultations.

Meanwhile, the Commission’s own stakeholder dialogue, which brought more than 80 different stakeholders together to discuss the implementation of Article 17, has come to a COVID19 induced halt after a series of contentious meetings, and all eyes are now on the European Commission which has yet to present a first outline of the implementation guidelines.

During the upcoming COMMUNIA salon, Teresa Nobre (COMMUNIA) will provide an overview of the implementation status in the different member states. Ula Furgal (CREATe) will provide a more in depth perspective on Article 15 (the new press publishers rights) including recent developments in France and Australia. Paul Keller (COMMUNIA) will provide an overview of the discussions surrounding the implementation of Article 17 including the ongoing stakeholder dialogue. Finally, Julia Reda (GFF /control ©) will discuss the role of litigation in ensuring a fundamental rights-preserving implementation of the CDSM directive.

The presentations will be followed by an informal question and answer session.

This event is open for everyone to attend and will be held on Zoom. In order to ensure smooth participation we request participants to register beforehand. Registered participants will receive login information ahead of the event.

Article 17 Stakeholder dialogue: COMMUNIA input paper

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Our principles for the the Commission guidelines
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Given the ongoing health emergency, the European Commission’s stakeholder dialogue on the implementation of Article 17 of the Copyright Directive is currently suspended. The 7th meeting of the stakeholder dialogue, which was originally scheduled for Monday of this week and where the Commission was expected to “share initial views on the content of the guidelines”, has been cancelled and it is currently unclear how and when the stakeholder dialogue will be resumed. In the meanwhile, the European Commission is continuing its work on the guidelines.

While we are waiting for news on the future of the stakeholder dialogue we have produced an input paper for the Commission (pdf) that summarises our observations from the stakeholder dialogue so far and formulates a number of principles that the Commission should take into account when drafting its guidelines. In line with our initial principles, the input paper focuses on licensing, transparency and procedural safeguards for users’ rights. The paper builds on the model that we had presented during the last meeting of the stakeholder dialogue. 

Specifically, we are asking the Commission to include the following in the Article 17 implementation guidelines: 

  • Recommend to national lawmakers to fully explore all legal mechanisms (including collective licensing with extended effect, mandatory collective management schemes and other non-voluntary licensing schemes) for granting OCSSPs authorisation to have in their platforms copyright-protected works and other subject matter uploaded by their users.
  • Require that all ownership claims made in the context of the measures required by Article 17 must be made fully transparent to allow public scrutiny and prevent unjustified removals or blocking by rightholders claiming ownership of works that they do not own.
  • Require that OCSSPs publish statistical information on the number of removal/blocking actions as well as the number of complaints and the resolution of complaints arising as the result of such actions.
  • Requires that in cases other than obvious infringement and in order to prevent automated measures from affecting lawful uses, users must have the ability to override all automated actions before the blocking/removal takes effect.
  • Require that in case of obvious (“prima facie”) infringement uploaded content can be automatically blocked/removed under the condition that uploaders have the ability to easily and effectively challenge such blocks/removals.
  • Require that users must be able to rely on all existing exceptions as grounds for challenging removal/blocking actions and must be able to dispute the ownership claims on which an action is based.

Continue reading →

Research Librarians: New TDM exception can be undermined by technical blocking from publishers

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Protect TDM from adverse effects of TPMs
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Today the Association of European Research Libraries (LIBER) issued a warning that the new Text and Data Mining (TDM) exceptions contained in the DSM directive can easily be undermined by technical blocking from publishers. LIBER has come to this conclusion based on the results of a survey on content blocking, carried out by LIBER’s Copyright & Legal Matters Working Group and the UK Libraries and Archives Copyright Alliance (LACA). The submissions to the survey so far confirm fears that Technical Protection Measures (TPM) can be abused by rightholders to limit the usefulness of the exceptions contained in the directive. 

Article 3 of the directive allows reproductions in the context of text and data mining for the purposes of scientific research made by research organisations and cultural heritage institutions. While the article allows rightholders to take measures to ensure the security and integrity of the networks, it does not allow them to prevent researchers from exercising their rights under the exception. It also requires rightholders to remove any TPMs that prevent researchers from exercising their rights but does not specify how quickly this has to happen. 

The survey conducted by LIBER shows that in practice it is difficult for researchers to get rightholders to remove TPMs or other access and use restrictions to content that research institutions have licensed. And in cases where such limitations are eventually removed the process is often long and resource intensive. All of this does not only frustrate efforts to text and data mining by individual researchers, but can also have negative consequences for entire institutions. 

The submissions shared with us by libraries and researchers from a mix of countries (some with TDM exceptions already and some without) show that:

  • Researchers are blocked from accessing many types of content. Journal articles were the most common type of content mentioned (44%) but eBooks, websites, databases and newspapers were also cited.
  • Content blocking takes, on average, nearly a month to resolve. Respondents reported that it took between 24 hours and 2-1/2 months to resolve the content blocking issue, with the mean time being 24 days. A fifth of survey respondents said they were only partially able to resolve the issue and 11% said it was never resolved.
  • Sanctions impact whole communities, not just individual researchers. Actions taken by publishers included 1) suspension of campus-wide access to paid for electronic subscriptions 2) threats to cut off access to content unless TDM was stopped 3) technically limiting downloads to one document only 4) a request for additional payments and 5) the introduction of captcha technology to frustrate data mining

The findings reported by LIBER are extremely relevant in the context of the ongoing implementations of the DSM directive in the EU member states. As we have noted in our implementation guide for articles 3 & 4 of the directive Member states should include in their national laws provisions requiring rightholders to remove TPMs and resolve lock-outs within a maximum period of 72 hours once reported.

In order to better make the case why such a requirement must be included in national implementations LIBER is continuing to collect evidence of abusive practices. If you work for an academic research institutions that has ran into similar issues in the past you can still contribute your experience to LIBER: 

If you or your organisation have ever been blocked from accessing a publisher’s servers for reasons you believe are related to data mining, fill out the survey. The survey can be answered anonymously and will remain open indefinitely. You can also send information on this issue to liberlegalworkinggroup@gmail.com”.

Article 17 stakeholder dialogue (day 6): Hitting a brick wall

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This week saw the sixth meeting of the EU stakeholder dialogue on the implementation of Article 17 of the new copyright directive. This meeting was the first one where the question of how to reconcile the protection of user rights’ with automated filters based on technology that cannot assess the legality of the use of copyrighted works was explicitly on the agenda. From the perspective of the users’ organisations participating in the stakeholder dialogue this is the main question that the stakeholder dialogue (and the guidelines that the Commission will have to issue afterwards) needs to address. 

Unfortunately, Monday’s meeting did not result in a productive discussion about how to protect users’ rights. Proposals made by COMMUNIA and Studio71 on how to strike a balance between the rights of users and the interests of creators and other rightholders were largely ignored by a coalition of major rightholders from both the music and the audio-visual sectors. Working in concert, the representatives of the Hollywood studios (MPA), film producers (FIAFP), commercial television channels (ACT), major record labels (IFPI) and music publishers (ICMP) disputed the fact that there is a tension between protecting users rights and automated blocking, restated their conviction that Article 17 is only about empowering them versus the platforms, and suggested that users should simply trust that rightholders will not block free speech or other legitimate uses. In doing so they have made it clear that they want their interests to prevail at all cost, that users should not be trusted and that for them user rights are something that should exist at their discretion. 

This outcome leaves the European Commission in the difficult position to make sense of the input gathered throughout the previous six meetings and to outline a way forwards. Fortunately it seemed that the Commission is not willing to succumb to the unconstructive behaviour exhibited by rightholders and will take serious its task of finding a balance between users rights and the interests of different types of rightholders. 

A proposals for protecting users’ rights

So how could such a balance look like and what is at stake? One of the key insights that emerged from the previous rounds of the stakeholder dialogue is that even the most advanced content recognition technology is incapable of understanding the context in which works are used. This means that technology alone cannot make the determination if a use is lawful or not. Article 17 requires platforms to take measures to prevent the availability of content that rightholders want to keep off the sharing platforms and, at the same time, to ensure that legitimate uses (such as quotations or parodies) are not affected. This means that no matter how good it is at recognising content, ACR alone cannot meet the requirements of the directive. Continue reading →

Article 17 stakeholder dialogue: What have we learned so far

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This analysis was previously published in two instalments on the Kluver Copyright Blog (part 1, part 2).

As 2020 unfolds, the European Commission’s stakeholder dialogue pursuant to Article 17 of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (CDSM directive) enters its third (and likely final) phase. After four meetings that focussed on gathering “an overview of the current market situation as regards licensing practices, tools used for online content management […] and related issues and concerns”, the next two (or more) meetings will finally deal with issues raised by the provisions in Article 17 of the CDSM directive. According to the Commission’s discussion paper for the meetings of 16 January and 10 February 2020, the objective of the third phase “is to gather evidence, views and suggestions that the services of the Commission can take into account in preparing the guidance pursuant to Article 17(10)”. 

In other words, after four meetings that have set the scene, the stakeholder dialogue will now address some of the thorny issues raised by Article 17. These include the key concepts like the best effort obligations to obtain authorisation and to prevent the availability of content (Article 17(4)), as well as the safeguards for legitimate uses of content (Article 17(7)) and the complaint and redress mechanisms available to users (Article 17(9)). In preparation for these forthcoming discussions, it is worth recapitulating what we have learned since the stakeholder dialogue kicked off in October of last year. 

Three takeaways from the stakeholder dialogue so far

After more than 25 hours of discussion (recordings of the four meetings can be found here: 1, 2, 3 and 4), there are three main insights that will likely have a substantial impact on the overall outcome of the stakeholder dialogue. These are the different motivations of different types of rightholders; the technical limitations of Automated Content Recognition (ACR) technologies; and the general lack of transparency with regards to current rights management practices. The first two of these are discussed in this post and the third will be covered in part 2 which will be published shortly. Continue reading →

Article 17 stakeholder dialogue (day 4): it’s all about transparency

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The fourth meeting of the Article 17 stakeholder dialogue took place in the last week before the holiday break. Just like the third meeting, this meeting was dedicated to (more or less) technical presentations on content management technologies and existing licensing practices. In total there were 12 presentations from platforms (Facebook, Seznam, Wattpad), providers of content management tools (Audible Magic, Ardito, Fifthfreedom, Smart protection), rightholders (GESAC, Universal Music Publishing, Bundesliga) as well as by BEUC and the Lumen database.

Filters are context-blind

The day’s presentations largely repeated the lines of arguments different stakeholders had presented during the previous meetings (a recording of the full meeting can be found here). Most notably all providers of content recognition technology confirmed that their technology does not go beyond simple matching of files and cannot understand the context in which a use takes place. Audible Magic summarised this in their opening statement:

Copyright exceptions require a high degree of intellectual judgement and an understanding and appreciation of context. We do not represent that any technology can solve this problem in an automated fashion. Ultimately these types of determinations must be handled by human judgement […]

As we have argued after the third meeting of the stakeholder dialogue, this is an unsurprising but significant insight as it means that current technology cannot be used to automatically block or remove content uploaded by users. 

Platforms don’t trust rightholders

The presentation given by Facebook about Facebook Rights Manager, its in-house content recognition tool, highlighted another problem that such tools are facing: One of the “main challenges” that Facebook is facing with its Facebook Rights Manager tool is that rightholders abuse the tool by claiming rights in works that they do not own. As a result Facebook only makes the most sensitive functionalities (such as automated blocking of uploaded content) available to a small group of carefully vetted trusted rightholders. Continue reading →

Implementing the new EU press publishers’ right

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Last week, we launched our Guidelines for the Implementation of the DSM Directive. This is part of a series of blogposts dedicated to the various provisions analysed in our guidelines. Today we give a quick explanation of the new exclusive right granted to EU press publishers by the new Copyright Directive.

For a detailed analysis, please read Communia’s guide on Article 15, authored by Timothy Vollmer, Teresa Nobre and Dimitar Dimitrov.Continue reading →

Implementing the new EU provision that protects the public domain

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Last week, we launched our Guidelines for the Implementation of the DSM Directive. This is part of a series of blogposts dedicated to the various provisions analysed in our guidelines. Today we give a quick explanation of the mandatory provision in the new Copyright Directive that ensures that faithful reproductions of public domain works of visual art cannot be subject to exclusive rights.

For a detailed analysis, please read Communia’s guide on Article 14, authored by Paul Keller, Teresa Nobre and Dimitar Dimitrov.Continue reading →

Implementing the new EU provisions that allow the use of out-of-commerce works

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Last week, we launched our Guidelines for the Implementation of the DSM Directive. This is part of a series of blogposts dedicated to the various provisions analysed in our guidelines. Today we give a quick explanation of the mandatory provisions in the new Copyright Directive that allow cultural heritage institutions to digitise and make out of commerce works in their collections available online.

For a detailed analysis, please read Europeana and Communia’s guide on Articles 8-11, authored by Ariadna Matas and Paul Keller. Continue reading →