We need minimal standards of exceptions for education and research
“We believe that there is a minimum set of access and use rights that should be defined by public rules, since they are justified by public interests. If copyright laws do not grant to the education and research communities, the cultural heritage institutions, and the persons with disabilities the same level of protection that is granted to rightsholders, and defer to private agreements the regulation of all uses of copyrighted materials, they perpetuate an unbalanced power structure […]. In order to have a minimum set of rules that are applied uniformly by every Member State and have a cross-border effect we need an international law.”
This statement was given by Teresa Nobre – a representative of Communia, which is a permanent observer of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR), taking place this week at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva.
Such international law is TERA (Treaty on Copyright Exceptions and Limitations on Education and Research Activities), that was drafted by 15 civil society organizations, amongst which also IPI, and endorsed on 25 September 2018 on the global congress “IP and the Public Interest” that took place at the American University Washington College of Law. This international instrument would ensure minimal standards of exceptions for educational and research purposes, while at the same time enabling countries flexibility in how to implement the obligations.
The 4th Open Knowledge Day took place on Tuesday 17 October 2023, with an accompanying workshop on 18 October 2023. This year it was organised by the Open Data and Intellectual Property Institute (ODIPI) and supported by Knowledge Rights 21 (KR21).
We invite you to the fourth Open Knowledge Day and the workshop, which will take place this year within the framework of the programme and with the support of Knowledge Rights 21. The event will bring together experts from different European countries to discuss two topics: the first part will deal with the legal basis for data analytics, which is a key part of machine learning and related artificial intelligence, and the general exception for research. In the second part, open science in theory and practice will be presented both in Slovenia and in some Western Balkan countries. Representatives of research and educational institutions from Slovenia and the Western Balkan countries, as well as interested members of the public, are invited to attend.
Dr. Maja Bogataj Jančič, a renowned expert in copyright law, has joined the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, where she will serve as an affiliate researcher for the next two years.
On Friday, October 6, 2023, the online seminar “Practical Experiences in Resolving Copyrights of Modern Book Works” took place. The seminar addressed relevant questions concerning user access to literary works in digital form.