Category copyright

In late September, the EU Commission has initiated its public consultation on online platforms. To encourage everybody to speak his/her mind, there now is (another) online tool that facilitates the process of submitting your opinion to the Commission. Read more

As part of a large coalition we have co-signed two open letters addressed to the European Commission as well as the European Parliament informing them about our concerns regarding the Commission's approach on copyright affairs. Read more

Civil society and digital rights groups are sounding the alarm about a public consultation run by the European Commission on the role of online platforms, the result of which could be new copyright rules that would effectively shut down people’s right to freely link online. The 75,000-strong Save The Link network has created an Internet Voice Tool to send feedback to the Commission as part of their consultation. Read more

The Blog IPKat leaked a draft communication on copyright reform from the European Commission "towards a modern, more European copyright framework". Alongside some positive approaches on how to reform the European copyright law, it contains the threat of changing the web as we know it today by directly attacking the hyperlink. Read more

Today, the European Parliament voted on MEP Julia Reda's report on the implementation of Directive 2001/29/EC (InfoSoc). The results were clear. Read more

The ancillary copyright for press publishers might find its way into Julia Reda's report for a progressive copyright reform. A corresponding amendment was tabled in the last minute. Read more

Yesterday, the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament voted on the Report on the Copyright Directive by MEP Julia Reda. It was adopted with a broad majority: 23 votes in favour, only 2 against (Front National) and no abstention. Read more

Austria will not get an ancillary copyright for press publishers! At least not for now. But it is only postponed, as the Ministry of Justice confirmed. Read more

Yesterday, the Austrian Ministry of Justice has published its draft amendment to the Austrian copyright law with a suspiciously short period for statements of only 10 days. Surprisingly, the draft contains an ancillary copyright for press publishers! Read more

On 16th June 2015, the European Parliament's legal affairs committee will vote on the report on the review of EU copyright rules. The report's author, MEP Julia Reda, calls on everybody to support her (good) work. Read more

Last week, Markus Keßler from Futurezone.at interviewed EU-Commissioner Günther Oettinger. Besides geoblocking, net neutrality and data preservation, the ancillary copyright for press publishers was also a topic on the list. Read more

The Lisbon Council and Innovation Economics have published the "2015 Intellectual Property and Economic Growth Index: Measuring the Impact of Exceptions and Limitations in Copyright on Growth, Jobs and Prosperity". The report was written by Benjamin Gibert, non-resident fellow at the Lisbon Council. Read more

Last week, several signatories sent an open letter to the coordinator of the Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights and Copyright Reform at the European Parliament Jean-Marie Cavada. It calls for an inclusion of the civil society in the process to ensure a balanced representation of views. Read more

On January 20, Julia Reda, MEP for the German Pirate Party and Vice President of the Greens/EFA group, presented the draft report evaluating 2001's EU copyright directive (InfoSoc) to the Committee on Legal Affairs of the European Parliament. Now the other committees concerned with this subject have published their views on the report. Read more

In her article published on The Digital Post, Caroline de Cock, Coordinator of the Copyright4Creativity (C4C) Coalition, claims that now is the time to fix European copyright law. And she is right. Read more

We are very excited to announce that IGEL is now a member of Copyright for Creativity (C4C). We are very happy to team up with this pan-European coalition of NGOs including  European Digital Rights (EDRi), Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF),  European Bureau of Library, Information, and Documentation Associations (EBLIDA) and many more groups and associations (see the full list of supporters here) working all together to promote a responsible and sustainable European copyright law for the digital age. Recent developments in Spain and discussions in other European Member States have raised concern that the ancillary copyright for press publishers might spread in Europe or even be introduced as a pan-European regulation. By partnering up with the C4C multi-stakeholder network we hope to raise more awareness and build a stronger resistance against such dangerous development for the digital world.

Julia Reda, MEP for the German Pirate Party and Vice President of the Greens/EFA group, has released the draft report evaluating 2001's EU copyright directive (InfoSoc). She is a member of the Committee on Legal Affairs of the EU Parliament and was elected rapporteur on this particular issue in May. Read more

In an open letter to Günther Oettinger, European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, the European Copyright Society (ECS) calls for a sweeping reform of copyright law. Read more