Current Copyright Policy Tendencies in 2015: Further Weakening of Limits and Exceptions and the Ever Reducing Public Domain

Abstract

In 2015, Spain's new copyright law entered into effect including many new provisions including one that requires Universities to pay Collecting Societies for using manuals and textbooks made available online in virtual campuses. This license cannot be waived and means that Universities have to pay even for works released under free licenses, such as Creative Commons, and for works already in the public domain. This weakens the protection offered by limits such as the one in favor of educational uses (art. 32 of the Spanish copyright act) and also reduces the public domain as it establishes unalienable licenses for content no longer in copyright. This, and other copyright policy tendencies such as various international treaties, at the moment still under discussion, or books rights holders seeking to restrict uses for text and data mining indicate that in 2015 further reducing limits on copyright and the free uses of work in the public domain will continue. We analyze these cases and propose solutions.