European Commission’s consultation paper on Article 17
European Commission has finally published the consultation document on stakeholders’ dialogue regarding the implementation of Article 17 of the Directive (EU) 2019/790 on Copyright and Related Rights on Digital Single Market. The document sums up the stakeholders’ main concerns and sets forth the initial views of the European Commission with the aim to finalise the Commission guidance on Article 17 implementation.
The new Article 17 DSM Directive is one of the most controversial ones, because it introduces a new liability regime for the online content-sharing service providers (online platforms) for the content uploaded by their users. With this, Article 17 invites content overblocking by way of using non-sophisticated filters, which can lead to unjustified infringements of users’ freedom of expression.
In order to discover the best possible way to implement Article 17, the European Commission held six stakeholders dialogues between October 2019 and February 2020, where rightsholders, online platforms, users, consumers, and fundamental rights organisations presented their views.
Now, the Commission has gathered all the stakeholders’ opinions, published them alongside with its own insight, and invited the participants to submit their written views on the document by 10 September 2020. The received feedback will then serve as basis for the Commission’s guide on the best possible implementation of Article 17 DSM Directive.
You can read more about the consultation document here.
It is also interesting to keep an eye on the CJEU Joined YouTube and Cyando Cases (C-682/18 in C-683/18), with AG Øe recently issuing his Opinion on the matter, which could provide answers to the very questions raised by the new Article 17 of the DSM Directive.
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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.