The first quarter of 2022 in EU copyright
The implementation of Directive 2019/790 of the European Parliament and of the Council on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market and amending Directives 96/9/EC and 2001/29/EC (the so called DSM Directive) is still underway across Europe. Only eleven member states have so far implemented the directive. Implementing legislation is in its final stages in the parliament in Luxembourg and Spain, whilst sixteen member states – Slovenia included – have not reached that stage yet. A public discussion of implementing draft laws was held in Slovenia on 5. january 2022, with not much activity seen since. The CJEU key decision regarding article 17 of the DSM Directive in case C-401/19, Poland v Parliament and Council, is also fast approaching (26. April 2022). After the final decision on Poland’s action for annulment is issued, Poland is expected to begin the implementation process as well.
AG Pitruzzella issued his opinion in case C-716/20, RTL Television (link in French). He held that the notion of ‘cable retransmission’ refers to the retransmission of a primary transmission by cable distributors, who carry out such retransmission as professional operators in the context of a conventional cable network.
The CJEU has accepted a preliminary assessment (5. January 2022) on whether Directive 2014/26/EU must be interpreted as precluding national legislation that reserves access to the copyright intermediation market, or in any event the granting of licences to users, solely to entities which can be classified, according to the definition in that directive, as collective management organisations, to the exclusion of those which can be classified as independent management entities incorporated in that Member State or in other Member States. The case will be discussed under the number C-10/2022 LEA.
In other news, related to copyright law:
The European Commission issued its proposal of the ‘Data Act’ (23. February 2022). The proposed regulation would harmonise rules on who can use and access data generated in the EU across all economic sectors.
European Parliament and the Council reached a provisional agreement (24. March 2022) regarding a highly awaited regulation, the so called “Digital Markets Act” – DMA.
On Friday 23 June 2023, a webinar entitled “Copyright and Legal Basis for Generative Artificial Intelligence Training” was held as the inaugural event of an informal research network in the region in the field of copyright. Researchers from Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and North Macedonia participated in the event, which is part of the national Open Knowledge Day initiative and the national and regional coordination activities carried out by ODIPI under the auspices of Knowledge Rights 21.
The new report of the Knowledge Rights 21 project partner SPARC Europe is now available.
Open Data and Intellectual Property Institute ODIPI is organising a webinar on the topic of text and data mining copyright exception, titled “Copyright-legal basis for training generative AI”, as part of the national and regional coordination of the Knowledge Rights 21 programme, led by Dr. Maja Bogataj Jančič.
Maja Bogataj Jančič has been invited as a representative of the Open Data and Intellectual Property Institute to attend the User Rights Network and Library Copyright Alliance meetings in Washington DC.