The creation and development of copyright law are closely connected to technological and associated business transformations (see, e.g. here). It is therefore not surprising that progress in AI technologies and their deployment in the creative sector creates new opportunities and challenges for the law, creators (authors and performers), and rightsholders. What is perhaps different with…

In this second post on the Swedish proposal for implementation of Article 17, I look at provisions explicitly concerning users of services. Whilst certain user safeguards are already embedded in the liability regime (Part 1), the Swedish Ministry of Justice goes the extra mile and proposes to comprehensively address user interests in the text of…

As promised in an earlier contribution, I will provide a more reasoned exploration of the Swedish proposal to Article 17 DSM Directive in view of the fact that the Ministry of Justice did not opt for the copy-paste implementation technique. In this first post, out of two, I will address the proposed liability regime. The…

On March 10th, 2022, the Advocate General (AG) Pitruzzella delivered his Opinion on the case RTL Television GmbH v Grupo Pestana S.G.P.S., S.A., et al (C-716/20). The case is an ideal example of the intricacy of the EU copyright law edifice regarding the right of communication to the public, which appears as a patchwork of…

Welcome to the first trimester of the 2022 round up of EU copyright law! We started this rubric back in 2021. In this series, we update readers every three months on developments in EU copyright law. This includes Court of Justice (CJEU) and General Court judgments, Advocate Generals’ (AG) opinions, and important policy developments. You…

This post is the second instalment of an analysis of the ‘very short extracts’ (VSE) carve-out to the press publishers’ right set forth in Article 15 of the CDSM Directive. The first part examined the legal nature of the VSE rule, concluding that it ought to be qualified not as an ‘exception’, but as a…

By now, Article 15 of Directive (EU) 2019/790 on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market (CDSM Directive) needs no wordy introductions. Put briefly, the provision requires Member States to introduce a related (or neighbouring) right for press publishers, applicable to online uses of their publications. By extending the rights of reproduction and…

Europol and the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) have recently jointly published an Intellectual Property Crime Threat Assessment. This report explores piracy and counterfeiting and is based on data from across the EU as well as Europol’s operational information. The report concludes that piracy and counterfeiting continue to pose a serious threat to the…

After two years of virtual-only meetings owing to the pandemic, on Friday 27 May 2022, the European Copyright Society (ECS) will gather in-person in Nottingham to discuss the constitutional turn and evolution of copyright law over the past few years, highlighting its influences from and interrelation with human rights law and related aspects such as…

Last week the European Commission published its proposal for a Data Act. The proposal is the second major element of the European Data Strategy presented in 2020 and complements the Data Governance Act that is expected to be formally adopted this spring. As expected, the proposed Data Act introduces rules strengthening user access and portability…