1. Work for the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport

The Ministry of Education, Science and Sport contributed actively in the legislative process of adopting the compromise Proposal of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market in the Council. IPI acted as a professional legal adviser for the Ministry and helped preparing the drafts and proposals of documents that were then used as answers to the proposals of the Presidency of the Council. On the basis of IPI’s advising work, the Ministry formed its positions and advocated them in the suggestions and comments on the documents of the Council as well as in the interdministerial cooperation with the Ministry of Public Administration, the Ministry of Culture, and the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology as well as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding the official position of the Government of the Republic of Slovenia in the Council.

In accordance with its public mandate, the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport presented its position, especially regarding new exceptions to copyrights that are foreseen for text and data mining and for education, including the suggestions regarding the so-called out-of-commerce works stored in the collections of cultural heritage institutions. The Ministry strived for mandatory, clear and free exceptions that would, especially in the field of education and science, enable the users a wide use of copyright works for the purposes of the public interest exercised by these institutions. Amongst others, the Ministry added comments and suggestions on Article 11, which prescribes a new neighbouring right for press publishers, and strongly advocated the deletion of this provision from the Directive as this unnecessary right would bring many negative effects on the scientific and academic field. Also, the Ministry advocated the deletion of Article 13, which imposes new obligations to the platforms hosting user-generated content, believing that this provision would impose general filtering obligations undermining fundamental rights of the users of the Internet and that it is changing the established legal regimes and safeguards envisaged in the EU acts.

The official position of the Ministry is available here.

2. Organization of the roundtable “Europe needs a good copyright reform”

On Friday, 7 September 2018, the Intellectual Property Institute, the Institute for Comparative Law, the institute Danes je nov dan, the institute Citizen D and the initiative Opening Up Slovenia jointly organized a roundtable entitled “Europe needs a good copyright reform” at the Faculty of Law of the University of Ljubljana. The roundtable was moderated by dr. Maja Bogataj Jančič.

All the Slovenian MEPs were invited to the roundtable to present their views on the directive on copyrights in the digital single market along with the following stakeholders:

– Associate Professor dr. Klemen Podobnik,Faculty of Law of the University of Ljubljana,
– dr. Vesna Čopič, Ministry of Education, Science and Sport,
– Mojca Jarc, Ministry of public administration,
– dr. Marko Grobelnik, Institute Jožef Stefan, National Messenger of Digital Technology,
– Gregor Štibernik, institute AIPA,
– Luka Novak, the Slovenian Organization of Authors and Publishers for Reproduction Rights – SAZOR GIZ k.o.,
– Vuk Ćosić, independent digital strategist and artist,
– Žiga Vrtačič, Danes je nov dan,
– mag. Miro Pušnik, the National Council for Library Activity,
– doc. dr. Matija Damjan, the Institute for Comparative Law,
– Špela Stare, the Slovene Association of Journalists,
– Domen Savič, Citizen D.

Report on the roundtable is accessible here.

Short introductory video is available here.

Video of the whole roundtable can also be found here.

Media reporting on the roundtable: OpeningupSlovenia, Delo, Dnevnik in Pravna praksa.

3. IPI in the media

Regarding the EU copyright reform, dr. Maja Bogataj Jančič gave the following statements in the media:

– on 22 January 2018, for Metina lista,
– on 15 June 2018, for Odmevi,
– on 20 June 2018, for Finance,
– on 21 June 2018, for Radio Prvi,
– on 5 July 2018, for Demokracija,
– on 5 July 2018, for Radio Študent,
– on 20 August 2018, for Gea magazine,
– on 3 September 2018, for Studio City,
– on 3 September 2018, for EDUS-INFO,
– on 7 September 2018, for RTV,
– on 27 September 2018, for VAL 202,
– on 22 December 2018, for STA,
– on 22 January 2019, for Radio Študent.

4. Participation on events

Also, dr. Maja Bogataj Jančič attended to many events, related with the copyright reform:

– UNESCO “World Open Educational Resources (OER) Congress“, from 18 to 20 September 2017,
– event “Reportage: do you speak CC? Ustvarjalna gmajna @ OSMO/ZA”, on 2 February 2018,
– Communia meeting in Bruxelles entitled “European Copyright Action Days”, from 21 to 22 March 2018,
– “EU copyright conference in higher education” jointly organized by Communia and ETUCE in Brussels on 11 April 2018,
– “Creative Commons Global Summit” in Toronto, from 13 to 15 April 2018,
– participation at the roundtable “Digital Single Market and Its Impact on Culture and Media in Croatia” in Zagreb, on 20 April 2018,
– world congress “IP Public Interest” in Washington, from 27 to 29 September 2018,
– participation on the workshop “Open Education Policy Forum” in Warsaw, from 15 to 16 October 2018,
– moderating the round table “Will the new copyright legislation for the digital market limit the freedom of expression and the access to information?”, on 25 October 2018,
– lecturing on the ninth consultation “Law and Economy: Digital Economy II”, on 21 November 2018.

5. Cooperation with Communia

Despite cooperating with Communia on several events (European Copyright Action Days, EU copyright conference in higher education, Creative Commons Global Summit and Open Education Policy Forum), IPI also translated Communia’s website Internet is for the People in Slovenian. On this website you can find the analysis and assessment of all the major issues of the Directive on copyright in the Digital Single Market.