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Kat-mining At the time of unveiling its  Digital Single Market Strategy in May 2015 , the EU Commission linked the establishment of a fully connected digital single market to the objective of creating a favourable environment for European start-ups and SMEs. With specific regard to copyright, however, it soon appeared that start-ups and SMEs were not really part of the picture as far as Commission’s action in this area of the law is concerned. In this sense, the  proposal for a directive on copyright in the Digital Single Market , which was released in September 2016, is a telling example. The content of the proposed text and data mining exception The draft provisions intended to remedy the so called ‘value gap’ (Article 13) and establish a new right for press publishers (Article 11) have been extensively criticized for – among other things – having the potential to raise barriers to entry in the markets for, respectively, hosting platforms and news aggregato...

MEP Therese Comodini Cachia Politico Europe (PRO version) has just   published  part   [so far only the odd pages]   of the text of the draft report that MEP Comodini Cachia is preparing on the European Commission's copyright package - including the   proposal for a directive on copyright in the Digital Single Market   [Katposts   here ]   - at the request of the European Parliament.  The IPKat has been able to access this part of the text of the draft report, and here are some of the most interesting proposals included therein. Press publishers' right to disappear and be replaced by a presumption of representation MEP Comodini Cachia appears willing to suggest that this proposed new  sui generis  right should be   dumped   subject to a significant re-thinking.  In particular, the draft report proposes to re-write Article 11(1) of the proposed directive as follows: "Member States shall provid...