It is relatively well documented that neither the French nor publishers are big fans of copyright reform. Given this, the comments from the CEO of the French publisher Hachette Livre on at last week’s London Book Fair are not entirely surprising. Less than three weeks after the European Commission launched a consultation that appears […]
It’s Fair Use Week, and organizations and individuals are publishing blog posts, hosting workshops, and sharing educational media about the implementation and importance of this essential limitation to the rights endowed by copyright. Fair use is a flexible legal tool that permits some uses of copyrighted material without permission from the original rightsholder, such as for use […]
Communia has published a policy paper on the topic of leveraging copyright in support of education. We contend that exceptions and limitations to copyright for education should support broad access and re-use of copyrighted content of all types in a variety of education settings and across borders. The best way to achieve the proper balance […]
The summary has been written by Adam Karpiński and the public policy team of Centrum Cyfrowe. In October 2015, Poland completed the process of amending the national Act on Copyright and Neighbouring Rights. Its aim was to adapt Polish law to the EU requirements: the Directive 2011/77/EU (the Directive amending the Directive on the term […]
How to secure user rights in education? This was the question we asked during a policy debate organised by Communia and hosted by MEP Michał Boni in the European Parliament on the 17th of November. Panelists, politicians and stakeholders participating in this debate discussed two approaches: the creation and use of Open Educational Resources (OER), […]
On Tuesday the European Commission published a roadmap outlining the next steps in their effort to modernize the EU copyright rules. The (not entirely unexpected) main takeaway from this roadmap is that the Commission is retreating from its earlier announcement that it will present a comprehensive legislative proposal for copyright modernisation before the end of […]
One of the positive points contained in the recently adopted Reda report that we have not discussed here before is the freedom to exercise copyright exception and limitations (although this is not a new topic – see Treaty Proposal on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives). In paragraph 61 of the report the members […]
Being a teacher in 2015 is both easier and more difficult than it was 30 years ago. It can be more difficult as there is pressure to follow new trends in online and digital technologies, the Internet of things, social media, and a push to adopt a more interactive approach to teaching. But there are […]
BEUC, The European Consumer Organisation, has released an interesting fact sheet pertaining to confusion and uncertainty in consumer use of copyrighted materials. BEUC surveyed relevant stakeholders about the current copyright reform debates in the EU. These stakeholders ranged from collecting societies to academics and government ministries, and the conclusions drawn from their answers are both […]
Last week we took part in a breakfast meeting at the European Parliament under the theme “Why licensing is not always the solution”. The meeting was hosted by MEP Jytte Guteland and co-organised by Communia together with Copyright for Creativity, IFLA, EBLIDA, and LIBER. Our goal was to demonstrate the need for reforms that go […]
