EU Copyright Directive Research Articles

Does Pakistan's Copyright and Antitrust Law Protect Creators of AI-Generated Content? A Comparative Study with European Union Jurisdictions

With the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), how should copyright and antitrust law handle AI-created creative work? The Copyright Ordinance 1962 and Competition Act 2010 are examined in this context to examine Pakistan's legal system. This study compares Pakistan's legal system to the EU's. The study focuses on the DMA and the EU Copyright Directive (2019/790). These two laws measure Pakistan's legal strength. Compare and contrast the legal systems of Pakistan with those of the European Union to find weaknesses and opportunities for progress in Pakistan's legal structure. This study may assist Pakistani policymakers and stakeholders in finding the best methods to adapt and update current regulations to handle the evolving environment of AI-generated content creation. Additionally, the article examines how antitrust laws affect AI-generated material and whether competition limits are enough to prevent AI corporations from monopolizing authors' rights. The article examines monopolization, norms, and AI-powered media. The research intends to illuminate artists' rights issues and identify legal loopholes that might hinder AI-generated material protection. It also suggests clarifying or amending rules to accommodate AI innovation. This detailed study illuminates Pakistan's complex copyright and antitrust relationship with AI-generated material. The findings of the research have added to the digital intellectual property rights conversation by revealing future rules and safeguards for artists working with AI-generated creations. Questions have been raised about how AI-generated material affects creative rights laws. The study begins with Pakistani AI content production IP rights. The research explores authorship, originality, and rights in the future when human programmers and algorithmic computers collaborate on creative creations. The study found that Pakistan's copyright and antitrust legislation does not address rising infringement problems, so aggrieved parties may have to use conventional remedies.

Modernisation of the EU Copyright Exceptions and Limitations Regime for Digital and Cross-Border Teaching Activities

The purpose of the article is to reveal the mandatory educational exception of Art. 5 of the EU Copyright Directive in the Digital Single Market (DSM Directive), which allows teachers and students in a formal educational environment to use copyrighted material digitally without the need to obtain permission from copyright owners first. Research methodology. To achieve the goal, a complex of general scientific approaches was used – theoretical (analysis, generalisation, synthesis) and empirical (review of electronic sources, study of activity results) research methods. Scientific novelty. It was established that the mandatory exception for education provided for in Art. 5 of the DSM Directive will solve some of the problems faced by teachers and students in the EU and will allow the digital use of copyrighted works for educational purposes, subject to certain established conditions. The article reveals the shortcomings of some provisions of Art. 5 of the DSM Directive. In particular, they can force schools and other educational institutions to enter into licensing agreements and pay royalties to authors and other rights holders for the use of copyrighted works in the classroom. Such licenses would place a significant financial burden on public and private educational institutions and force them to negotiate with collective management organisations. It was noted that the exception for education should extend to all non-commercial pedagogical activities of teachers and students as part of the educational process, which can take place in various environments and forms. It is emphasised that the exception should also apply to other entities that carry out non-commercial pedagogical activities (libraries, museums, research institutions, distance learning service providers, and others). Conclusions. Art. 5 of the DSM Directive for the first time creates a basis for the digital use of works protected by copyright in pedagogical activities under the responsibility of an educational institution. EU Member States can avoid introducing an exception where rights holders (eg publishers) offer easily accessible but paid licenses to educational institutions. In addition, EU Member States may provide fair compensation to rights holders for the digital use of their works. For harmonisation in a cross-border context, the DSM Directive introduces the principles that authorised action on this exemption takes place only in the EU Member State where the respective institution is located. Keywords: EU copyright, exceptions and limitations, education and teaching, educational institution, educational exception, library.

Sajtókiadók szomszédos joga

A hírek új ökoszisztémáját uraló digitális közvetítőszolgáltatók a hagyományos sajtóhíreket újrahasznosítva, e tartalmakat keresőfelületre optimalizálva jutnak jelentős reklámbevételekhez. Az Európai Unió elsősorban versenyjogi eszközökkel vagy az európai vállalatok versenyhelyzetének javítására tett lépésekkel igyekszik rávenni e digitális nagyvállalatokat arra, hogy az európai tartalmak finanszírozásából is kivegyék részüket. A 2019-ben elfogadott uniós szerzői jogi irányelv sajtókiadókra vonatkozó szabályai is ezt a célt hivatottak szolgálni. Jelen tanulmány ezek áttekintését követően kitér a tagállami átültetés jelenleg is látható kérdéseire is.

Negotiating Under the New EU Copyright Directive 2019/790 and GDPR

Directive 2019/790 expands copyright protections for copyright owners who share content online. This new regulatory regime further invokes the data transfer obligations of the GDPR, and licensors of online content, as well as licensees, must be aware of not only issues that may arise but leverage opportunities.

Aware Thus Accountable: The Court of Rome on ISP Liability and Copyright Infringement via Hyperlinking

In February 2019, the Court of Rome issued an important decision in a controversy between RTI (Mediaset) and Facebook – due to the publication of links to contents under RTI copyright, within a Facebook group. In particular, the Court condemned copyright infringement via mere hyperlinking through a social network, for the first time in Italy. Starting from the case at hand, and against the backdrop of the upcoming EU Copyright Directive, the Author critically discusses the trends on copyright infringement via hyperlinking and on the related hosting provider liability within the EU.

Article 13 of EU Copyright Directive – A Step Forward or Rearward?

The present two-part post critically evaluates the much-discussed question in European Union as to whether Article 13 of the Proposal for a Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (2016) entitled use of protected content by information society service providers storing and giving access to large amounts of works and other subject-matter uploaded by their users, strikes a fair balance between, on the one hand, the protection of copyrighted-content of copyright-holders on the internet, and, on the other, the competing interests and rights of internet-intermediaries and end-users, keeping in view the current European law and CJEU precedents. The first part of this two-part series would provide some elementary information, which culminated into the formulation of aforesaid directive, while the second part would manifest my views as to the workability and validity of the Directive and its potential to strike a fair balance inter-se competing parties, along with some suggestions.

Digitalni aktivizam - primer reakcije internet korisnika na nova pravila EU o autorskom pravu

Social digital activism is a topic less addressed by the scientific community. Following explanations of digital activism and its manifestations, this paper presents and analyzes the case of reactions of Internet users to the proposal to amend the European Union Copyright Directive. The emphasis is on digital activism that animates average Internet users, members of virtual communities which are inherently non-political. Through the case study, the elements of digital activism are evident: dissemination of information, meta-advertising, assertion, digital petitions, flood method. This paper emphasizes the importance of digital activism, its advantages, and its disadvantages. By observing the events that followed the reactions of Internet users to Article 17 in the proposal for a new EU Copyright Directive from 2016 until its adoption and later on, we gain insight into the need to combine online and offline activism.

Nuevo marco regulador europeo de los servicios audiovisuales bajo petición y de intercambio de vídeo. Su repercusión en el mercado español de plataformas

El presente artículo analiza cómo está configurado el nuevo marco regulador europeo de los servicios audiovisuales bajo petición y de intercambio de vídeos, en el contexto actual de intersección y convergencia entre la televisión y los servicios de Internet. Además, se observa qué caracteriza a las diez principales plataformas de vídeo que operan en el mercado español de cara a su adaptación a la nueva regulación. Para ello se profundiza en los aspectos más relevantes contemplados al respecto en la Directiva Europea de Servicios de Comunicación Audiovisual (2018) y en la Directiva de Derechos de Autor (2019), así como las implicaciones que tiene la neutralidad tecnológica. Se llega a la conclusión de que el nuevo marco regulador aplica a las plataformas reglas similares a las que ya regulan los canales de televisión europeos, y aporta mayor transparencia, más protección para los usuarios y creadores de contenidos, así como medidas de no discriminación en el acceso a los contenidos. Se observa que las plataformas objeto de estudio que operan en España requerirán una adaptación al nuevo escenario audiovisual europeo, especialmente en lo que se refiere a contenidos para menores, verificación de edad de usuarios y porcentaje de producción europea.

Fine-Tuning European Copyright Law to Strike a Balance between the Rights of Owners and Users

Directive 2001/29 (the EU Copyright Directive) aims to repress copyright infringement in the digital environment through the harmonisation of copyright discipline and the safeguard of technological protection measures (TPMs). It claims that this harmonisation is instrumental to the protection of the exclusive rights of the owners while granting protection to the fundamental rights of the public, such as freedom of information and the circulation of culture. The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, by analysing the Directive’s national implementation in the 27 Member States of the European Union, it assesses the extent to which the Directive attained the intended harmonisation and whether this is effective to achieve the balance of rights. Secondly, after the identification of areas of dysfunction, the paper proposes an alternative strategy to reach a harmonisation able to strike a better balance between the rights of owners and users.

The EU Public Interest Clinic and Wikimedia Present: Extending Freedom of Panorama in Europe

This paper advocates for the adoption of freedom of panorama in the European Union. The term “freedom of panorama” (FoP) refers to an unconditional copyright exception vis-a-vis works of architecture and sculpture placed permanently in public places. The current lack of uniformity with respect to copyright exceptions at the EU level has proven problematic to end-users, service providers and other intermediaries. It has also frustrated the ultimate goal of promoting a single internal market throughout Europe, and safeguarding freedom of expression and free movement of services throughout the EU.The current system does not harmonize copyright exceptions throughout the EU. Rather, each Member State is free to adopt copyright exceptions as it sees fit. The result is a heavily fragmented system that leaves businesses and users with the necessity to individually deal with each Member State and rights holder concerned. A mandatory exception for FoP would play a key role in guaranteeing freedom of expression, access to education and the free movement of digital services in the internal single market.FoP is critical for ensuring freedom of expression and access to education. Additionally, the growth of net companies that rely on user generated conduct (UGC), such as through YouTube, Wikipedia and blogs, has led to the constant fear among most EU citizens of violating copyright law. This reiterates the need for a FoP exception that covers both commercial and non-commercial uses. Furthermore, many new cross-border educational initiatives in Europe do not fall within the “non-commercial educational and scientific research purposes” exempted under the current InfoSoc Directive. Some national systems that broadly extend the education exception to uses that fall outside the “non-commercial” definition do not extend the exception to online uses.The EU Copyright Directive should be re-written to include a mandatory FoP provision, as is already the case in the national law of EU Member States such as the United Kingdom and Germany, as well as third countries like Brazil. This solution would also comply with copyright-protective countries’ call – among them Italy, Spain and France – for such an exhaustive list. This solution would provide clear direction to Member States without becoming an overly lengthy and unwieldy document.Several problems remain with this approach. First, there has been reticence on the part of the European Court of Human Rights to protect FoP from a freedom of expression standpoint when the images’ use was commercial. Second, there is the possibility for Member States to use trademark law, cultural heritage law, or other national laws to get around a mandatory FoP exception. The uses of trademark and cultural heritage law do not pose a significant barrier to a mandatory FoP exception at present. However, the reforms ultimately decided upon must take into account the possibility of the use of this law to frustrate the Directive’s objectives.The HEC-NYU EU Public Interest Clinic (the “Clinic”) presents its justifications for a mandatory FoP exception below. We also include an annex and model legislation that addresses many of the deficiencies of current EU law.

Indian copyright law and anti-circumvention provisions: can a please-all regime meet the global yardsticks?

Indian Copyright law, which has been in existence for more than 165 years, is on the verge of a major transformation triggered by rapid advancements in technology. In 2012, the law was amended to incorporate the Technology Protection Measures (TPMs) mandated by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Copyright Treaty. This article examines in detail various provisions of the amendments on TPMs in the light of the WIPO Treaty, Digital Millennium Copyright Act provisions and the EU Copyright Directive. It explains the rationale behind the unique provisions under the amendment, the various internal and external factors which influenced the Indian policy makers, compatibility of the Indian provisions with global practices and the approach of the judiciary, which is going to play a crucial role in cases involving protection of TPMs.

Can hyperlinks and digital rights management secure affordable access to information?

Digital Rights Management Systems (DRMs) related control mechanism, which are analogous to and augment the exclusive rights, have been the subject of debate since the early 1980s. DRMs, which function like an electronic security guard that ‘never leaves its post, never takes a break and never sleeps,11Cameron, Alex, Digital Rights Management: Where Copyright and Privacy Collide (2004) 2 Canadian Privacy Law Review 14, p. 17. can invade the privacy of individuals, prevent competition and/or control access to a work that is not or is no longer copyright protected. Hyperlinks are citations of an electronic address, but when clicked they navigate the user to the source of further information, including codes circumventing DRMs. This article accepts that the excesses of DRMs can outreach copyright and/or contract law, but argues that DRMs provide an opportunity for innovative business models, which can both protect digital works and promote free use of hyperlinks. Part 1 outlines the background and legislative provisions related to DRMs. It contrasts the WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) 1996,22The WCT, (and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty – WPPT, containing similar provisions), are available at http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ [22/04/2012]. Articles 11 and 12, with corresponding provisions found in the implementing legislation of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) 1998,33Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 1998 at http://copyright.gov/legislation/hr2281.pdf [18/04/2012]. and the EU Copyright Directive (EUCD) 2001.44[Copyright] Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society, Official Journal L 167, 22/06/2001 P. 0010–0019. It also examines the intellectual property aspects of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Europe's Anti-counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).55The TPP, also known as the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement, which came into effect on 28 May 2006 and was initially between Singapore, New Zealand, Chile and Brunei is currently negotiated by other countries in the region including Australia, Canada, Japan and United States; negotiations are conducted in secret and the text is not publicly available.ACTA is between the EU and Australia, Canada, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland and the US and is available at http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/11/st12/st12196.en11.pdf [26/6/2012]. Part 2 debates opposing academic opinion and comments on case law relating to DRMs, including the use of hyperlinks as a way of trafficking circumvention technology and/or facilitating unauthorised access to a copyright work. It assesses the extent to which DRMs might inhibits the development of new products, prevents competition, or invades the privacy of individuals, and points to the opportunities a consumer group-rightholder negotiated model end user licence can offer. Part 3 concludes that DRMs bolsters the clutches of the rightholder, but reduce unauthorised access to information thus minimising revenue loss, which can make hyperlinked ‘consumer’ access to information ‘affordable,’ or even free.

Monopoly defeating mechanisms: Will they function in the digital world?

History reveals that ‘copyright’ was originally monopolistic (in the early fifteenth century) and remained so until the enactment of the Statute of Anne in 1709. Since then copyright has striven to maintain a delicate balance between incentive to authors and avoiding monopolistic stagnation. To achieve these goals, certain monopoly-defeating mechanisms have been adopted such as: fair use, public domain, the idea/expression dichotomy and the exhaustion doctrine. Recently, however, with the implementation of new laws: for instance the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (1988), the EU Copyright Directive (2001), and the implementation of the EU Copyright and Related Rights Regulation amending the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988, there is a growing concern that the mechanisms which were enacted to defeat the monopoly will not work in the digital medium. With the provision of affixing technological measures to copyrighted works and the non-application of the exhaustion doctrine in the digital world, arguably the monopoly defeating mechanisms have been disabled. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the way monopoly defeating mechanisms are becoming non-functional in the digital world. Furthermore, the study also demonstrates how the European Copyright Directive and the UK implementation of the Directive has transgressed the boundary of exclusive rights set by the two World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) treaties – the World Copyright Treaty (WCT) and the WIPO Performers and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT) – and copyright law, thereby strengthening the copyright owner's rights in a way that was never intended by the WIPO treaties or by copyright law. Consequently, the new laws have also shifted copyright's attention from commercial pirates to non-commercial individual users. The study aims to demonstrate how the shift took place and finally, trace the recurrence of the monopoly; giving rise to a situation where there is no fair use/dealing, no public domain, no idea/expression distinction and no exhaustion doctrine.

EUCD Best Practice Guide: Implementing the EU Copyright Directive in the Digital Age

This report provides a set of recommendations for transposing the European Union Copyright Directive (EUCD) into the national copyright frameworks of accession states and candidate countries. The guide, which is based on a peer-produced compilation and comparison of existing implementations of the EUCD across Europe, could also inform future law reform in existing member states. The report focuses on digital copyright issues and suggests principles aimed at establishing best practices with regard to user autonomy and peer collaboration, diversity, and political and cultural participation. The study includes specific recommendations in controversial areas such as DRM anti-circumvention frameworks, private copying exceptions, teaching exceptions, exceptions for disabled people, exceptions for archives and libraries, as well as recommendations on issues such as reporting on current events, the quotation right, and provisions on caricature and parody, among others. Full text available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=952561 .

The new French law on author's rights and related rights in the information society

Purpose – France implemented the EU Copyright Directive (EUCD) in June 2006. This paper aims to reprise the history of the new law, its content, some reactions and the possible impact on document supply.

Teaching Exceptions in European Copyright Law - Important Policy Questions Remain

The paper seeks to explore the implementation of the EU Copyright Directive (EUCD) provisions on research and teaching in selected Member States using a fictitious case study of a professor who scans parts of a textbook, copies some digital articles, uploads them to the university's web server and gives passwords to the students enrolled in his class. After a rough clustering of country-specific implementations, the permissibility of the uses made in the case scenario is explored under five representative jurisdictions: Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg, Malta, and Slovenia. Finally, the authors raise a couple of policy questions that emanate from the previous analysis.

The EU Copyright Directive as Compared to US Copyright Law and its Implication for Libraries

This article aims at analyzing the relations and differences between the United States of America Copyright Law and the European Union Directive 2001/29/CE and how they affect the management of protected work in the libraries.

Transposing the Copyright Directive: Legal Protection of Technological Measures in EU-Member States - A Genie Stuck in the Bottle?

The EU Copyright Directive (EUCD) entered into force on June 22, 2001. The directive is aimed at harmonizing the divergent European copyright regimes and at transposing the WIPO treaties. EU member states were granted 18 months to transpose the provisions of the EUCD into their national laws. However, several member states have not yet implemented the EUCD over one and a half years after the process should have been completed. This paper asks whether and why Genie is stuck in the bottle. It starts with an overview of the current state of implementation of the European Copyright Directive (EUCD) and then focuses on the ways in which EU member states have transposed the EUCD's provisions on the protection of technological measures into national law. First, the analysis reveals that uncertainty over provisions aimed at protecting technological measures as well as the definition of crucial terms (such as 'effective measures') persists - even at a basic level. The question, for instance, as to what extent access control mechanisms fall under the definition of technological protection measures has been contested in some member states. Second, the study explores different ways in which national implementations have addressed the problem of privately applied technological protection measures vis-a-vis the traditional exceptions to copyright. The authors argue that incumbent member states have not made broad use of private copying exceptions and have diverged as far as the implementation of the public policy exceptions are concerned. Third, a brief analysis of some approaches to sanctions and remedies taken by EU member states suggests that member states have interpreted the relevant provisions of the EUCD in different ways. Differences remain with regard to criminal sanctions in particular. The study concludes that the EU member states are leaving both the fine-tuning of new legislation and resolution of rather fundamental issues related to the EUCD to the national courts and, ultimately, to the European Court of Justice. The paper suggests that the EUCD has led to a certain level of harmonization of member states' laws, but also identifies and maps significant differences among member states in the field of anti-circumvention laws.

DRMS, TCP and the EUCD: technology and law

The paper examines relationships between law and technology and focuses on the legal aspects of copyright and centers on the new EU Copyright Directive specifically with respect to DRMS. It, furthermore, examines the relationships between DRMS and the Trusted Computer Platform (TCP) initiative. In order to illustrate the complex relationships between laws, licenses, and DRMS, the paper presents a model, illustrating that copyright holders will not rely exclusively on law or technology but on the interplay between the two.

Copyright Law & Economics in the Copyright Directive: Is the Droit d'Auteur Passe?

In continental Europe, copyright law is traditionally viewed as a so-called 'natural' right - briefly put: it is simply right for the author to enjoy the fruits of his labor. However, socio-economic considerations are becoming more in important in European copyright doctrine. One reason for this tendency is that more and more copyright matters are regulated at the EU level and that the European regulator explicitly adheres to the economic rationale for copyright law. In this contribution, it is investigated what the apparent economic policy goals are of the EU Copyright Directive of 2001 - which is by far the most ambitious piece of EU legislation in the area of copyright to date. The purpose of this article is not to set-out new, cutting-edge economic theories on copyright law, but merely to analyze what the explicit and implicit aim of the Directive is and to explore what, according to standard, mainstream and widely known economic theory, will be the likely result of the new regulations on copyright law. Will the Copyright Directive succeed in achieving its apparent goals? What does economic theory predict about its impact? The emphasis is on the most important and controversial changes that the Copyright Directive brings about. These are the introduction of a right of temporary reproduction, the limiting of the exhaustion of copyright, the abolishing of remuneration rights and, last but certainly not least, the broad protection of technological measures - i.e. DRM systems. The article concludes that the Directive appears to be based on a great belief in the beneficial effects of granting property rights in information products and in the ability of the market mechanism to achieve an optimal result. However, it may well be argued that apparent faith in the 'invisible hand' of the market is unjustified. Particularly, the public good character of information products is not taken into account. Moreover, the provisions of the Directive may hinder competition to a further extent than copyright traditionally did, which could have an undesirable result as well. Additionally, the apparent reliance on market forces to match the demand for uses with the offered technological usage restrictions may be unsubstantiated. There may be valid arguments for limiting the freedom of contract and the freedom to block any information usage technologically.