What we hope for WIPO under new leadership: neutrality, fairness, and transparency

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Improve the quality of policy making at WIPO
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Last week, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) nominated a new Director General, Daren Tang, who will assume the post on 1 October 2020. Tang is currently the Chief Executive of the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore and has served as the Chair of WIPO’s Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) for the past six bi-annual meetings of the committee. 

A growing number of civil society organizations working on copyright reform, including Communia and its members Wikimedia and Creative Commons, participate as permanent observers in the SCCR, for the committee addresses several important issues in the field of copyright. This includes a potential new treaty for the protection of broadcasting organizations; exceptions and limitations to copyright for libraries, museums, archives, educational and research institutions, and persons with other disabilities; and the broader topic of copyright and the changing digital environment. 

WIPO has the potential to affect norm setting in a variety of topics in the field of copyright, not only those currently discussed in the SCCR, but also others that WIPO may introduce via its training and capacity-building activities. In fact, although WIPO is a member state-driven institution and only its 192 country members can decide on the adoption of binding legal instruments or soft laws, the Director General and his senior management team can influence the direction of national law and policy reforms in developing countries through the organization’s technical assistance program.

The impact of the WIPO Secretariat on the work of the copyright committee

The WIPO Secretariat also has a significant impact on the work of the SCCR. In the past year, we have witnessed that it is fairly easy to prejudge the outcomes of an Action Plan on Limitations and Exceptions adopted by the WIPO member states if the WIPO Secretariat carries out the activities foreseen in such a plan in a manner that puts an over-emphasis on the private interests of copyright owners to the detriment of the public interests related with access to knowledge and education. 

Regional events intended to identify “areas for action with respect to the limitations and exceptions regime” can easily be turned into lobbying platforms for copyright owners, if ill-designed. Would-be beneficiaries of the limitations and exceptions regime can easily be prevented from sharing their experiences in such events in a structured manner, if no formal speaking roles are given to them. Furthermore, an international conference intended to discuss limitations and exceptions for cultural heritage and educational and research institutions can be organized in such a manner that the panels are dominated by rights holders and collective management organizations, preventing a fair and balanced discussion on the issues at hand. Continue reading →

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

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A dangerous precedent for user rights
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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.

What changes are introduced to the existing legal framework in Germany?

Germany proposes to implement the new educational exception through an amendment to the existing education exception in Section 60a of the Act on Copyright and Related Rights (see English version here). 

The current exception covers all relevant, digital and non-digital, educational activities undertaken by educational establishments for non-commercial purposes. The exception is technologically neutral and allows the educational establishment’s teachers and students to hold activities in any venues. However, it sets quantity limitations (save for illustrations, isolated articles from the same professional or scientific journal, small-scale works or out-of-commerce works, which can be used in their entirety, the exception only allows the use of up to 15% of a work) and it excludes specific uses of certain types of materials from the scope of the exception, most notably materials exclusively intended for teaching in schools and sheet music. Furthermore, most uses are subject to the payment of compensation to the rightholders.

Under the new proposal, the scope of the education exception would be practically the same. The main difference is that the exclusion of specific uses of certain types of materials would be conditioned to the existence of licenses (easily available in the market and covering the needs and specificities of educational establishments) authorizing those uses. In other words, if such licenses do not exist, then those uses can be made under the exception. 

What is the main flaw of Germany’s proposal?

The main flaw of the proposed education exception is to give preference to licensing offers over the educational exception, with respect to specific uses of certain types of materials, taking away the educators and the learners right to make those uses under the exception as soon as copyright owners start selling licences for said uses.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 →

Implementing the new EU protections against contractual and technological overrides of copyright exceptions

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This 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 prevent contractual and technological overriding of some of the new copyright exceptions.

For a detailed analysis, please read Communia’s guide on Article 7, authored by Teresa Nobre and Natalia Mileszyk. Continue reading →

Implementing the new EU exception for preservation of cultural heritage

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This 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 exception for preservation of cultural heritage contained in the new Copyright Directive.

For a detailed analysis, please read IFLA and Communia’s guide on Article 6, authored by Stephen Wyber. Continue reading →

Implementing the new EU exception for digital and cross-border education

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This 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 exception for digital and cross-border education contained in the new Copyright Directive.

For a detailed analysis, please read Communia’s guide on Article 5, authored by Teresa Nobre. Continue reading →

Implementing the new EU exceptions for text and data mining

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Yesterday, we launched our Guidelines for the Implementation of the DSM Directive. This is the first of a series of blogposts dedicated to the various provisions analysed in our guidelines. Today we give a quick explanation of the two mandatory exceptions for text and data mining contained in the new Copyright Directive.

For a detailed analysis, please read LIBER and Communia’s guide on Articles 3 and 4, authored by Benjamin White and Maja Bogataj Jančič. Continue reading →

Our Guidelines for the Implementation of the DSM Directive

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We are thrilled to release our Guidelines for Implementation of the DSM Directive.

These guidelines explain different provisions of the new Copyright Directive and make suggestions on what to advocate for during the implementation process of those provisions in the EU Member States. They are aimed at local advocates and national policy makers, and have the general objective of expanding and strengthening user rights at a national level beyond what is strictly prescribed by the new Directive. 

Communia partnered with LIBER (Articles 3 and 4), IFLA (Article 6) and Europeana (Articles 8 to 11) for the creation of these guidelines. The guidelines are part of a wider implementation project of COMMUNIA and its members Centrum Cyfrowe and Wikimedia, which includes a range of activities (including our transposition bootcamp) to make sure that local communities in as many Member States as possible participate in their national legislative processes.  

There is room for improvement in the DSM Directive

The two and a half years of public discussions of the new Copyright Directive were largely centred on a small number of problematic clauses (the press publishers right and the upload filters). However, the Directive also includes a number of provisions that improve the existing EU copyright rules (a number of new copyright exceptions and protections for the public domain).

While the national implementations will have to include all the problematic aspects of the new Copyright Directive, there is some room for meaningful improvements, and some measures can be taken to mitigate the worst provisions of the Directive. The EU Member States have until 7 June 2021 to implement the Directive into their national laws. 

Expanding and strengthening user rights

Our detailed proposals try to achieve the general objective of expanding and strengthening user rights by suggesting that, during the national implementation process, Member States make use of the following flexibilities: Continue reading →