Why Article 11 of the Directive is not a good solution
For all of us who were curious about the outcomes of a possible new ancillary copyright for press publishers, we need look no further.
As it happens, Germany adopted a “model scale” of the new right in 2013 aimed specifically against web search engines, granting press publishers with an exclusive right to make the press product or parts thereof available to the public for commercial purposes, unless the use consists of individual words or very short text excerpts. Sounds familiar? The EU is about to introduce the same right in Article 11 of the new DSM Directive. Without some major adjustments to the provision that might not be such a good idea, considering the effect the right has had in Germany – even though the court is leaning to rule in favour of the collecting society VG Media, who is suing Google for remuneration based on the new right, Google will not go down without a fight, threatening press publishers with de-listing them, if they would not grant free usage rights to Google. This behaviour has earned Google a separate lawsuit for abuse of a dominant position, which was rejected by Landgericht Berlin denying any abuse by Google, the case is currently pending before the Court of Appeal in Berlin.
The entire conundrum just goes to show, that imposing a link-tax on news aggregators, might result in big news market players getting away without repercussions, and smaller press content providers getting stuck with the bill. Even scientific studies show, why the new ancillary right might not be a good solution.
Also, info for any member state wishing to adopt similar provisions on a national level: AG Hogan recently delivered an opinion that such provisions must be notified to the Commission beforehand.
Yesterday, The British Library hosted a meeting of the Copyright Working Group at CENL (Conference of European National Libraries). CENL is a network of 48 national libraries from 45 European states. The National University Library (NUK), represented by dr. Maja Bogataj Jančič for many years now, is actively engaged in this working group.
Between 9 and 12 September, the 9th Pan-Commonwealth forum (PCF9) is being held in Edinburgh, Scotland. On this meeting, different stakeholders in the field of education (policy makers, academics, representatives of the civil society) discuss the future of education in light of the issues of the fourth industrial revolution.
Wikimania is the biggest world conference on free knowledge. It is organized by the Wikimedia Foundation. This year, the conference was held in Stockholm between 14 and 18 August under the title: “Stronger together: Wikimedia, Free Knowledge and the Sustainable Development Goals”.
A dispute between the University of California (UC) and the publishing giant Elsevier echoes in academia. After months of negotiations, UC decided to terminate the agreement with the publisher as the latter was not willing to agree to UC’s terms. UC, where almost 10% of scientific articles in US are published, wanted to make those articles available to the public. Instead, Elsevier insisted on double payment for “open access” articles.