10th anniversary of the Public Domain Manifesto
This year we celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Public Domain Manifesto. Its goal is to emphasize the importance of the wealth of information, which is free from the barriers associated to copyright limiting the access and re-use of a copyright work.
These barriers are not present either because rightholders voluntarily allow the use of their work or because copyright protection expires. Works that do not meet the condition of originality or are excluded from protection (such as data, ideas, methods of operation etc.) are also in the public domain. In the era when the Internet allows us the direct access to our cultural heritage and knowledge, it is important that the policy makers and individuals contribute to strengthening the concept of the public domain. One of the first signatories was also the Intellectual Property Institute.
The French government has a new plan for Europe that could help the EU compete with the US tech giants: the digital commons.
The International Association of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), PAC Centre for digital preservation, hosted at the National Library of Poland is holding a series of 10 webinars on basic understanding of digitisation projects.
Communia, a non-governmental organisation that advocates for policies that expand the public domain and increase access to and reuse of culture and knowledge, issued twenty new copyright policy recommendations for the next decade.
The DSM Directive entered into force in June 2019 and the deadline for implementation expired on 7 June 2021. On 23 June 2021, the Commission launched multiple infringement procedures and sent letters of formal notice to Slovenia and 22 other Member States that had failed to notify it of the full transposition of the Directive. Slovenia remains among the 14 Member States against which the Commission is continuing the infringement procedure. On 19 May 2022, the Commission sent reasoned opinions to Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Greece, France, Latvia, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia, Finland and Sweden.