The media landscape has shifted dramatically in less than a decade. Instead of sitting in front of the family TV, millions of Europeans, especially young people, watch content online, on demand and on different mobile devices.
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The European Commission has proposed new rules for the online platforms. The new rules will tackle identified objectives by:
Comments closedPresumption for publishers of press publications
Press publications contain mostly literary works but increasingly include other types of works and subject-matter, notably photographs and videos. Due to the large number of authors and rightholders involved in the creation of a press publication, licensing and enforcement of the rights in press publications are often complex and inefficient in the digital environment. Publishers may notably face difficulties when proving that they have been transferred or licensed the rights in such works and other subject-matter for the purposes of concluding licences or enforcing the rights in respect of their press publications.
Comments closedTeachers and students face legal uncertainty when using content in digitally-supported teaching practices, in particular across borders. A huge variety of content (text, images, music, video), often protected by copyright, is used in teaching activities.
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The European Parliament and the Council reached a political agreement to update the EU’s telecoms rules. The new European Electronic Communications Code, proposed by the Commission, will boost investments in very high capacity networks across the EU, including in remote and rural areas.
Comments closedSelf-standing obligation of measures
Over the last years, the functioning of the online content marketplace has gained in complexity. Online services storing and providing access to copyright protected content uploaded by their users have flourished and have become main sources of access to content online. When the content is uploaded by users who do not own the relevant rights in the whole or parts of the content they upload, this situation affects rightholders’ possibilities to determine whether and under which conditions their content is used as well as their possibilities to get an appropriate remuneration for it. It is therefore necessary to provide for certain measures that these service providers should take to protect the content.
Comments closedThe EU copyright legal framework harmonises rights of authors and neighbouring rightholders and seeks to harmonise “exceptions and limitations” to these rights, although most of them are optional for the MS to implement. An “exception” to an exclusive right means that a right holder is no longer in a position to authorise or prohibit the use of a work or other protected subject matter: the beneficiary of the exception is already authorised by law to do so.
Comments closedThe proposed Publisher’s Right strikes a fair balance between the legitimate interests of all parties involved and therefore appears proportionate. It has been criticised that the decline in newspaper revenues does not have anything to with the activities of news aggregators or search engines.
Comments closedEU legislative intervention (i) requiring MS to put in place legal mechanisms to facilitate collective licensing agreements for all types of OoC works and to foster national stakeholder frameworks, and (ii) giving cross-border effect to such legal mechanisms.
Under Option 2, the presence of legal frameworks everywhere in the EU that allow for licences issued by CMOs to also cover the rights of outsiders would give CHIs the possibility to see their related transaction costs diminish considerably everywhere in the EU for the digitisation and dissemination of works. This would apply to all types of works. Under this option, it would be possible for the CHI to reduce that cost to the one of negotiating a single licence with a CMO. Licences concluded on the basis of such legal frameworks could have cross-border effect for all works too.
Comments closedThe briefing note by committee of legal affairs demonstrates that the new, related right for press publishers provided in Article 11 of the ‘Proposed DSM Directive’ is required to address pressing market failures in the area of the online press. The note also outlines why the proposed Article 11 is proportionate and the criticism raised against it by various stakeholders is not compelling.
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