Category EPC

Publisher associations lie to S&D MEPs   03/07/2017 by Till Kreutzer

We got word that the European publisher organisations EMMA, ENPA, EPC and NME addressed all S&D MEPs last week in an email. Here they explain how and why a neighbouring/ancillary copyright for press publishers would be so fundamental, e.g. for quality journalism, to pay journalists et cet. As usual, the text is full of lies and allegations. Most of the arguments are well known and were rebutted by many commentators on many occasions (read about these and others e.g. here and here) before. Allow us, nonetheless, a brief comment. Read more

How to solve the only specific problem of press publishers with copyright without an ancillary copyright    23/11/2016 by Till Kreutzer

The only argument of the press publishers in their quest for an own ancillary right that seems reasonable to a certain degree is their call for facilitated enforcement. They bemoan that it is difficult to enforce rights against mass online piracy. If this is a factual problem it can be solved easily without even touching the matter of an ancillary copyright. Read more

Draft copyright directive is out and a slap in the face of the Internet!   14/09/2016 by Till Kreutzer

Finally it is out: The draft for the new Digital Single Market Directive (DSM directive). The result is even worse than we expected it from the recently leaked preliminary draft document. Whereas the wish list of the press publishers gets ultimately fulfilled in the slightly changed final version, the public interest falls even more behind. Read more

ECJ litigation proves that publishers are lying about „not wanting to tax hyperlinks“   08/09/2016 by Till Kreutzer

Today the European Court of Justice (ECJ) decided that linking to a work that has been uploaded illegally on the Internet might infringe copyright. The case was pushed by, inter alia, a publisher whose association EPC claims that the European request for a neighbouring right does not concern hyperlinking at all.