This includes the right for libraries to lend out works in digital formats under the same conditions as works in physical form. Controlled digital lending should be fully permitted at the EU level. In addition, libraries should be able to acquire works in digital form in a format that would leave libraries in control of the technical environment enabling digital lending.
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, […]
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 […]
This independent expert study, commissioned by COMMUNIA and Knowledge Rights 21 to Christophe Geiger Bernd Justin Jütte, explores what positive obligations must be imposed on rightholders as a consequence of the rights users enjoy under copyright law, in particular in the light of the fundamental rights they are reflecting. A particular focus of the study […]
Today, COMMUNIA is releasing Policy Paper #19 on e-lending (also available as a PDF file), in which we address the shortcomings of the current European legal framework, and present our recommendations for an EU-wide right to e-lend. Libraries play a long-standing part in connecting European citizens to, and enabling their use of, information resources.The services […]
Background In a world where information is increasingly accessed digitally, library users expect and need access to e-books. However, libraries face significant barriers to transition their lending practices from analogue to digital.1 In recent years, it has become increasingly common for publishers and aggregators to limit access to e-books through libraries, by imposing highly restrictive […]
Due to the lack of a clear legal framework for e-lending at both the EU and member state level, libraries are struggling to fulfil their public service mission in the digital environment. We are hosting the first COMMUNIA Salon of this year, online on Wednesday, May 29, 15:00-16:00 CEST, on the occasion of the publication […]
On the 6th of March 2024, we were delighted to welcome a full house at our “Unlocking Knowledge Conference” at Town Hall Europe. At this event, we asked academics, civil society representatives and EU policymakers about the issues knowledge institutions and researchers still face when accessing and using copyrighted materials in their activities, particularly in […]
The purpose of copyright, at its very basic level, finds its normative implementation in the interplay between access to protected works and the protection of the moral and material interest of creators (see Geiger, 2017). The social contract of copyright, which main purpose is to realize a broader collective concern, the access of citizens to […]
A fair and modern copyright framework is essential for an enabling European research environment. However, researchers often find that their access, use and reuse of resources essential to their activities is still limited by copyright and related rights. While, thanks to the 2019 DSM directive, they now benefit from a EU wide text and data […]
