In September 2016 the European Commission released its proposed changes to copyright in the EU. Unfortunately, the proposal fails to deliver on the promise for a modern copyright law in Europe. Creative Commons is a founding member of  the Communia Association, which has been hard at work advocating for positive changes to the Commission’s plan.

The group has published a series of position papers dealing with the various parts of the proposal for a Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. The short policy papers are linked below. The next step in the legislative process will be providing specific textual changes to the proposed Directive. This amended language will be introduced by Members of the European Parliament and negotiated within the relevant committees. There’s still time to fix this copyright law to make sure that it supports users and creators in the 21st century.

EDUCATION EXCEPTION: The paper argues for the introduction of a mandatory exception for educational purposes that does not primarily focus on the type of person or institution doing the teaching, but rather on the educational purpose of the use, and that cannot be excluded by Member States if licensed content is available.

TEXT AND DATA MINING EXCEPTION: The paper argues for expanding the proposed exception to allow Text and Data Mining by anyone for any purpose.

ANCILLARY COPYRIGHT: The paper argues that Article 11 (“Protection of press publications concerning digital uses”) should be removed from the proposal.

FREEDOM OF PANORAMA: The paper argues that the European Parliament should introduce a broad, EU-wide Freedom of Panorama right that applies to both commercial and noncommercial uses of all works permanently located in public spaces.

CONTENT FILTERING FOR ONLINE PLATFORMS: The paper argues that Article 13 and the related recitals should be deleted from the proposal.