Category draft

According to a study by the US publishers' association News Media Alliance, in 2018 alone Google generated revenues of 4.7 billion US-dollars from news content without paying for it. According to the publishers, this has to change in the future. Read more

The last trilogue negotiations for this year between representatives of European Parliament, European Commission and European Council took place last week. Again, an overall agreement could not be reached. Read more

After months of discussions, the Committee of Permanent Representatives of the Council (COREPER) has agreed its common position on the text for the upcoming Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. This position will serve as a negotiating mandate for the Presidency of the Council of the European Union. Despite all warnings, this mandate also allows for the introduction of an ancillary copyright for press publishers aka the link tax. Read more

We have called the publisher's right as proposed by the EU Commission in September 2016 an "ancillary copyright on steroids" – for good reasons! Now MEP Axel Voss has published his proposal for the European Parliament's position which is so extreme and destructive, not even the Incredible Hulk would dare to pick a fight. Read more

On the 20th September 2016 the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection called on all stakeholders involved to provide their opinion on the EU Commission's proposal for a directive on copyright in the Digital Single Market (DSM-directive). A few weeks later we submitted our statement which also functions as a condensed overview on all critical aspects regarding a European ancillary copyright for press publishers. Unfortunately, at that time it had only been available in German. But now you can either download an English version (PDF) or read the full text here: Read more

Today, the EU Commission has published its plans on introducing an ancillary copyright for basically any press publisher lasting a little over 20 years. Glyn Moody wrote an article published by ArsTechnika UK criticizing the draft. 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

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