EU COPYRIGHT DIRECTIVE

When the European President Jean-Claude Juncker took office last November he identified the creation of a digital single market for consumers and businesses as his number one priority. This vision in part relies upon a more harmonised approach to copyright among Member States, which in turn suggests a review of the principal source of regulation - the EU Copyright Directive. The Directive, which was adopted in 2001 as a response to emerging digital technologies, sets out a core set of rights for authors and other rights holders and a largely optional set of exceptions and limitations to these rights. As digital technologies have continued to evolve and create a ‘borderless’ on-line environment, the territorial exercise of copyright has come under increased pressure, as has the current balance between rights and exceptions.

Günther Oettinger, Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, is tasked with overseeing the review of the current copyright rules, a process that began in late 2013 with a wide-ranging public consultation. The consultation produced varied results: in simple terms, those representing rights holders argued that digital access could be best secured through licensing while intermediaries and other users argued for more extensive legal allowances. Legislative proposals are due towards the end of the year.

The European Parliament’s contribution to the review is being led by its Legal Affairs Committee. The Committee’s rapporteur Julia Reda, a German MEP representing the Pirate Party, published a report in January setting out some wide-ranging proposals for copyright reform, including the broader application of exceptions. Amendments to the report are being tabled ahead of a vote to adopt the report in the Committee in April, prior to voting within Parliament in May.

The majority of authors receive fees from the licensing of their works in the education sector in the UK and overseas. If the case is made for the inclusion of broad, mandatory educational-use exceptions in a revised Copyright Directive, these fees could be significantly reduced in the future.

There is a need to strike a balance between accessing works for educational use and incentivising authors to sustain the creation of future materials. The European Writers Council (EWC), the Society of Audiovisual Authors (SAA) and International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organisations (IFRRO) are lobbying in support of licensing solutions.