©-LAW

If only all mining activities were these cheerful! A few days ago this blog  reported  that Irish Government has recently proposed the introduction into Irish law (new section 53A of the Copyright Act) of a  copyright exception  for text and data mining (TDM). From an EU standpoint, the most interesting aspects of the Irish proposal are probably the following: First, its timing: while it is true that a TDM exception was first proposed in the 2013  Modernising Copyright  Report , an actual initiative of that Member State's Government comes at a time when discussion is well underway to introduce a mandatory TDM exception at the EU level  [Article 3 of the Proposal for a  Directive on copyright in the Digital Single Market   - on the EU proposal see further  here  and  here ] .  Secondly, the different scope of the Irish exception  [which would be derived from Article 5(3)(a) of the  InfoSoc Directive ] ...

Following the conclusion of the 6-month Estonian presidency, the presidency of the Council of the European Union is now  Bulgarian , and will be so for the first semester of 2018. The  Council  is one of the key EU institutions and brings the voice of Member States' governments into the decision- and law-making process. In fact and among other things - together with the European Parliament - the Council is in charge of adopting EU legislation. Of course, one of the pending pieces of legislation that might receive a decisive boost towards its formal adoption over the next few months is the Directive - proposed by the EU Commission in September 2016 - on copyright in the Digital Single Market  [ here ; Katposts  here ] . Since its release, the draft directive has attracted extensive commentary. In particular, the draft provisions contained in Article 11 ('Protection of press publications concerning digital uses', this being a proposal to intro...

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...

The proposal (for a directive on copyright in the Digital Single Market) As  reported  by this blog, on 14 September last the EU Commission unveiled its  second  copyright package , ie a new set of proposals  [the first being the  proposed regulation on cross-border content portability  in December 2015]  aimed at improving the existing EU copyright framework as part of its  Digital Single Market Strategy  (DSMS). Among the contents of the package, so far what has attracted the greatest degree of attention is the Commission's  proposal for a directive on copyright in the Digital Single Market  (DSM Directive).  Much has been said on the ambitiousness (or lack thereof) and merits (or demerits, depending on one's own perspective) of relevant provisions, notably those regarding new mandatory exceptions  [Articles 3 to 6] , a new related right in press publications  [Article 11] , and the so called...