Guidelines for the Implementation of the DSM Directive
Yesterday Communia released the guidelines for implementation of the Directive on copyright and related rights in the digital single market (DSM directive). These guidelines explain different provisions of the new DSM Directive and make suggestions on what to advocate for during the implementation process of those provisions in the EU Member States.
Communia’s Guidelines are aimed at local advocates and national policy makers, and have the general objective of expanding and strengthening user rights at a national level beyond what is strictly prescribed by the new Directive.
Communia partnered with LIBER (Articles 3 and 4), dr. Maja Bogataj Jančič, head of IPI, IFLA (Article 6) and Europeana (Articles 8 to 11) for the creation of these guidelines. The guidelines are part of a wider implementation project of COMMUNIA and its members Centrum Cyfrowe and Wikimedia, which includes a range of activities (including our transposition bootcamp) to make sure that local communities in as many Member States as possible participate in their national legislative processes.
The two and a half years of public discussions of the new DSM Directive were largely centred on a small number of problematic clauses (the press publishers right and the upload filters). However, the DSM Directive also includes a number of provisions that improve the existing EU copyright rules (a number of new copyright exceptions and protections for the public domain).
While the national implementations will have to include all the problematic aspects of the new Copyright Directive, there is some room for meaningful improvements, and some measures can be taken to mitigate the worst provisions of the DSM Directive. The EU Member States have until 7 June 2021 to implement the DSM Directive into their national laws.
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.