Use of content protected by technical protection measures (TPMs) can be burdensome or even impossible, when there are no clear and rapid mechanisms in place to unlock such protection measures or when it is not possible to locate the owners of such measures. Circumvention of TPMs should thus be explicitly allowed when exercising usage rights, and the deployment of TPMs to hinder access to Public Domain material on copyright grounds should be prohibited. In addition, to protect users against abusive contractual practices and to ensure that they do not lose their rights, contractual terms that seek to prohibit usage rights should be rendered unenforceable.
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. […]
In this publication, we lay out our ideas for 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. Our booklet is structured along four actions to empower knowledge institutions in the digital age: Protect the Public Domain! Unlock […]
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, […]
Background Users are losing the ability to own copies of copyrighted materials. Today, many materials are only published in digital rather than analogue formats to the point that it has become much more difficult, if not impossible, to obtain movies, music or scientific publications in analogue formats. At the same time, publishers no longer sell […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
