On January 1st of every year, new heritage works enter the Public Domain. Unfortunately, oftentimes these works can still end up being inaccessible to the public, despite the fact that, legally speaking, nothing should prevent public access. In order to share experiences and best practices in opening up this material, we co-organise the annual Public […]
We’re excited to join the TAROCH Coalition, a global community effort steered by our member Creative Commons to encourage UNESCO to achieve the adoption of a UNESCO standard-setting instrument to improve open access to cultural heritage. The Coalition is led by representatives of a global, diverse community of organisations and institutions involved in cultural heritage […]
The EU heads of state or government came together for an informal meeting in Budapest last week to adopt the “Budapest Declaration on the New European Competitiveness Deal” with the goal to strengthen European competitiveness, develop common economic prosperity, and ensure the EU’s sovereignty and global influence. In the declaration, the Council commends the recent […]
On October 2nd, COMMUNIA was invited to contribute to an event by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Future of Work programme in Brussels entitled “Rebooting the debate: Generative AI and creative work.” COMMUNIA President and Open Future Policy Director Paul Keller provided a keynote speech on the current legal framework on copyright and AI, noting that Articles 3 […]
On October 2, COMMUNIA hosted an in-person event in Brussels on why Europe needs a Digital Knowledge Act. A video recording of the event is now available (hosted on Vimeo). The event brought together academics, representatives of civil society and EU policymakers to discuss legislative measures that would enable knowledge institutions, such as libraries, archives, […]
Europe is investing heavily in research and innovation, and for good reason. But we have failed to support these interests by clearing the way for the digital transition of libraries, archives, universities and other knowledge institutions that are essential to promoting progress. We need to prioritise reform that focuses on the needs of these institutions. […]
Since the beginning of the year, we have fleshed out proposals for measures that should be included in a Digital Knowledge Act — a targeted legislative intervention that enables libraries, archives, universities and other knowledge institutions to offer the same services online as offline. In a series of six policy papers, we identified the constraints […]
Join us on October 2nd, from 1500h to 1700h, for an in-person event on why Europe needs a Digital Knowledge Act at TownHall Europe, Brussels! What to expect The European Union is spending massively on research and innovation. Horizon Europe has a budget of €95.5 billion, up from a cool €80 billion for its predecessor program, […]
Today, COMMUNIA is releasing Policy Paper #21 on the right to license and own digital materials (also available as a PDF file), in which we highlight a crucial challenge that users face in the digital environment: the increasing inability to own digital copies of copyrighted material. Legacy physical formats, such as books, CDs and DVDs, […]
EU copyright law provides rights holders with powerful tools, in the form of exclusive rights and enforcement mechanisms, that allow them to control the dissemination of essential knowledge goods. In the digital ecosystem, rights holders can exercise these formally legitimate rights to segment access and restrict who can buy and license their digital works. This […]
