On July 6, the EU adopted the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (DSM Directive), following heated discussions of Articles 15 (formerly 11) and 17 (formerly 13) in particular. In Germany, tens of thousands of people took to the streets to demonstrate against the planned legislation in the lead-up to the vote in the European Parliament…

Part 1 of this post outlined two of the three main takeaways from the Article 17 stakeholder dialogue so far. This part will cover the third of these, lack of transparency, and look ahead to the next phase of the dialogue. Lack of transparency on all sides There was finally one issue that all stakeholders…

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…

As we enter a new year, we would like to take this opportunity to pass on our best wishes for 2020 to all of our readers, as well as reflect on developments in copyright over the past year.  Last year was another busy one in the copyright world, with a number of landmark CJEU decisions,…

On 17 May 2019 the new Directive (EU) 2019/790 on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market was officially published (DSM Directive). Article 17 (ex-Article 13) is one of its most controversial provisions. As discussed previously on this blog, Article 17 is an extremely complex provision: it suffers from problems of internal consistency…

Part I of this blogpost discussed the first paragraph of Article 17(7) DSM Directive, according to which the cooperation between online content sharing service providers (OCSSPs) and rightholders cannot render unavailable uploaded content which does not infringe copyright or neighbouring rights. Part II addresses the second paragraph of Article 17(7) which is instead addressed at…

Article 17 of the adopted DSM Directive requires that so-called online content-sharing service providers (OCSSPs) either obtain use licenses from rightholders or, failing that, enforce copyright ex ante by preventing uploads. At the same time, according to Article 17(7) any agreements between rightholders and OCSSPs cannot affect the availability of content created under the limitations,…

A key feature of the Copyright Digital Single Market Directive (DSMD) is the legal regime it provides for Online Content-Sharing Service Providers (OCSSP). These are, essentially, internet platforms storing and giving the public access to a large amount of copyright-protected works or other protected subject matter uploaded by their users, which the platform organises and…

Part I of this blogpost was dedicated to the background which led to Articles 8-11 of the CDSM and to the concept of out of commerce works. Part II critically overviews the core of the mechanisms established by the Directive. The dual regime of the Directive The crux of the provisions certainly lies in the…

In Part I of this two-part post on Chapter 3 of the new Copyright Directive, I argued that Articles 18-23 were well-intentioned. It is now up to Member States to send clear signals of support to their creative community by not rendering these provisions ineffective. In addition, while there is ample opportunity to harmonise creator-protective…