Comparative Report on the National Implementations of Articles 15 & 17 CDSMD – 14 New Countries

As reported in earlier posts on this blog and on the Kluwer Copyright Blog, in a 2022 study, I examined the national implementations in the 11 Member States that had at that time transposed Article 15 (the press publishers’ right) and Article 17 (the special copyright liability regime for “online content-sharing services providers” (OCSSPs)) of the EU’s Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive (CDSMD).  […]

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 […]

The end of the copyright protection for Walt Disney’s 1928 short film “Steamboat Willie” – known as the first-ever appearance of Mickey Mouse – was met with great interest by the international media and among artists. Yet, a little-noticed international treaty has the unexpected effect of extending the protection for the film under the copyright […]

The end is in sight! After delays at (almost) every stage of the legislative process, the EU AI Act will soon be published in the EU’s official journal and eventually enter into force in August. This marks the end of more than 3 years of negotiations since the text was originally proposed by the European […]

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, […]

In Italy, the use of images of cultural heritage in the Public Domain is still subject to heated debate. This blog post provides an update on the situation, presenting a recently adopted ministerial decree, which facilitates the use of such images in scientific publications. While the decree is a step in the right direction, it […]

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 […]

On June 18th, we hosted our first online salon in 2024 on the hollowing out of the Public Domain through cultural heritage laws with a particular focus on Italy. In recent years there have been a number of problematic court cases around the commercial reuse of Public Domain works held by Italian cultural heritage institutions. […]

Earlier this week, COMMUNIA member Open Future, together with Mozilla, published a proposal for the implementation of the AI Act’s training data transparency requirement. The paper includes a blueprint for the transparency template for developers of GPAI models that the EU AI Office will need to develop over the next 12 months. The AI Act […]