reCreating Europe Final Conference – Report

March 31, 2023/in Activities, Past Events, Workshops & Conferences /by Rosie Allison

Three years of intense research and dissemination activities culminated in reCreating Europe’s final conference, which took place in Brussels on 21-22 March 2023. The Conference was an opportunity for project partners to celebrate, connect and discuss their results with reCreating’s key stakeholder groups, EU policy-makers, members of the European Parliament, academics, legal practitioners, representatives of NGOs, and copyright enthusiasts at large. Over 80 participants enjoyed two-days of panels, keynote speeches and presentations on all-things digital copyright law.

Day 1 – Museum of Natural Sciences

The first day of the event was hosted at the Museum of Natural Sciences, and was devoted to the presentation of the project’s substantive research results. The results were then commented on by distinguished scholars and members of key stakeholder categories.

The conference kicked off with the opening remarks of the project coordinator, Caterina Sganga (Associate Professor of Comparative Private Law, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna), who walked the audience through the three years of reCreating’s activities and results. Her intervention was followed by the presentations of two keynote speakers, Niva Elkin Koren (Professor of Law, Tel-Aviv University), who talked about copyright in generative AI modes, and Imke Reimers (Associate Professor of Economics, Northeastern University), who shared her reflections on the digital challenges in the book publishing industry.

The day was then structured around 5 panels – one per each group of stakeholders on which the project has focused its research. Panels presented the most relevant results of reCreating Europe, which were commented upon by a leading academic commentator and two representatives of stakeholders. For a full overview of the commentators, see the Final Conference Programme.

Session 1 – End-Users

Maria Lillà Montagnani (Professor of Commercial Law, Bocconi University) chaired the first session of the conference, which was centered around end-users’ perspectives. The session started with Caterina Sganga’s presentation of the results of reCreating Europe’s EU and comparative mapping of copyright flexibilities. Péter Mezei illustrated the findings of the empirical research conducted on online platforms’ end-user license agreements and their attitude vis-à-vis users’ rights and obligations. Arianna Martinelli and Joost Poort provided an update on the Global Piracy Studies, while Delia Ferri commented on the technological, legal and economic challenges, barriers, and opportunities for access to knowledge for vulnerable groups.

Session 2 – Authors, Performers, and AI

The next session focused on authors, performers, and AI, with Martin Senftleben (Professor of Intellectual Property Law and Director, Institute of Information Law, University of Amsterdam) taking over the role of chair. Joost Poort presented the results of a survey on authors’ and performers’ experiences with the use of AI and platform algorithms. Thomas Margoni and Martin Kretschmer reported on their study on the interplay of new technologies and IP, with a particular emphasis on AI training and text and data mining, whereas João Pedro Quintais illustrated reCreating’s report on interaction of copyright and neighbouring rights for AI (music) productions. Finally, Ula Furgal elaborated on the reversion rights.

Session 3 – Creative Industries

Chaired by Sean Flynn (Professor; American University, Washington College of Law), Session 3 was centered on creative industries. Eneli Kindsiko commented on the results of reCreating’s empirical studies on new business models and challenges in niche creative industries. Her talk was followed by Ingmar Pastak, who shed light on the impact of COVID-19 on selected creative enterprises. Bartolomeo Meletti and Stef van Gompel shared the codes of best practices the project developed for the reuse of copyright content in the field of documentary film-making. Alessandro Nuvolari and Raffaele Danna (Postdoctoral research fellow, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna) offered an insight into the results of their surveys on EU-based IP negative spaces. The session ended with Bartolomeo Meletti’s presentation of a brand-new online platform for users and creators of copyright-protected works, www.CopyrightUser.EU.

Session 4 – Cultural Heritage Institutions (GLAM)

The panel on cultural heritage institutions was chaired by Marie-Christine Jannsen (Professor and Director; KU Leuven, CITiP). Roberto Caso and Paolo Guarda opened the session with an overview on their report on copyright and openness of cultural data. Giulia Dore and Laura di Nicola (Research fellow, University of Trento) followed up with a presentation of the results of their evidence-based research on the impact of digitisation for galleries, libraries, archives, and museums. Last, Marta Iljadica and Pınar Oruç talked about the interaction of copyright, trademarks and placemaking. This session also hosted representatives from reCreating Europe’s sister-project, inDICEs, with Konrad Gliscinski, who presented their final policy recommendations.

Session 5 – Intermediaries

The final session, chaired by Tanya Aplin (Professor of Intellectual Property Law, King’s College London), revolved around intermediaries. João Pedro Quintais discussed the fragmentation of the EU legal landscape in the field of copyright content moderation, while Sebastian Schwemer shed light on the future of content-filtering. Christian Katzenbach and Daria Dergacheva (Postdoctoral researcher, University of Bremen) concluded by offering insights on their empirical research on content moderation on online platforms.

View the live-stream of the event (please note, due to a technical issue sound is missing from the first part of the video)

View the presenters slides.

Day 2 – Policy Recommendations at the European Parliament

The second day took place at the European Parliament, and focused on reCreating Europe’s policy recommendations, targeting national and EU policymakers. The event was hosted by MEP Brando Benifei (Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament; Rapporteur of the AI Act), with the cooperation of MEP Axel Voss (Group of the European People’s Party in the European Parliament; Rapporteur of the CDSM Directive).

A two-hour roundtable on “The future of EU copyright law: policy recommendations” was preceded by the keynote speeches of MEP Benifei, MEP Voss and Marco Giorello (Head of the Copyright Unit, DG CONNECT, European Commission, and featured the presentations of reCreating’s policy conclusions by Caterina Sganga, Peter Mezei, Joost Poort, Martin Kretschmer, Roberto Caso and João Pedro Quintais, chaired by Paul Keller (President of COMMUNIA Association & Director of Policy at OpenFuture Foundation).

View the recording of the event.

reCreating Europe would like to thank you to all of our speakers, consortium members, hosts, technical team and participants for making the conference possible. Together, we will continue to reimagine copyright law for a more culturally diverse, accessible, and creative Europe!

Drafting reCreating Europe’s Policy Recommendations and Best Practices – What, why and how?

October 11, 2022/in News, End users, Past Events /by Rosie Allison

Within the context of WP2, dedicated to end-users, reCreating Europe’s latest output – the (draft) Code of Best Practices and Policy Recommendations – is devised to achieve two main objectives; to facilitate understanding of copyright flexibilities through the code of best practices, and to propose reforms directed to national and EU policy makers through the policy recommendations. This blog details how these recommendations were developed, and how they will help achieve our project aim of facilitating access to digital culture through copyright law.

Best practices – What, why and how?

The code of best practices stems from the effort to make the WP2 mapping of EU copyright exceptions digestible for end-users and non-copyright aficionados. In this sense, best practices are primarily directed to laymen, as their ultimate scope is to bridge the knowledge gap between users and copyright experts. Thanks to the code of best practices, users can become aware about the different degree of copyright flexibility ensured by national copyright laws. In this way, users will be acknowledged of the dos and don’ts in Member States, so that they will be able to benefit from the degree of flexibility ensured by national copyright laws to the maximum extent.

To draft the code of best practices, the results of reCreating Europe’s comparative analysis of EU copyright law have been transformed into takeaways, to empower users in the digital arena and thus foster access to culture.

The best practices were tested at the workshop conference organized by the Institute of Information Law, University of Amsterdam, that took place on the 21^st of September 2022. At the workshop, stakeholders and copyright experts gave their feedback and suggested to convert the best practices into a guidance, to increase the degree of user-friendliness and guarantee an easier dissemination through social networks and similar channels.

Policy recommendations – What, why and how?

ReCreating Europe’s policy recommendations stem from the effort to convert the WP2 comparative analysis into suggestions for national legislators and policymakers. For this reason, they are conceived as guideposts for the next copyright reforms taking place at the national level, to achieve a fairer copyright balance and reduce the harmonization gap amongst Member States.

These recommendations were conceptualized within the context of a workshop grouping interested EU policymakers, organized in Brussels the on the 20^th of September 2022. Thanks to these policy guidelines, the state-of-the-art of EU copyright law can give a concrete impulse to the next legislative reforms. In fact, national legislators may start from the “lessons learned” of our mapping to devise copyright flexibilities that will be more effective from a systematic standpoint. In this way, reCreating EU will also actively contribute to the EU-driven policy objective of achieving better harmonization of national statutory law within the field.

The first draft of our policy recommendations was presented to the conference in Brussels and will be improved and further enriched with the feedback and suggestions that emerged during the workshop. The exchange of inputs among the national policymakers involved will be intensified in the following months. Thus, this draft will be substantially revised in structure and the legislative approach to be promoted will be refined as well, to present the final version of the policy recommendations at reCreating Europe’s final conference (scheduled for the end of January 2023).

Author: Camilla Signoretta – SSSA

Read the draft version of the Code of Best Practices and Policy Recommendations on our Zenodo channel here.

Report: WIPS6 Conference in Szeged

June 21, 2022/in Activities, Galleries, Libraries, Museums & Archives, Past Events /by Rosie Allison

Author: István Harkai

Photos by Isabel Beirigo

May has been a busy month of conferences for participants of the reCreating Europe research consortium. We presented at the ‘Open Up Museums!’ workshop in Trento, at the ECS Annual Conference in Nottingham, and concluded this series in Szeged on 9-10 June at the sixth Workshop on Intellectual Property (WIPS6). Although the conference was mainly in-person, due to anomalies in European air traffic, several speakers were unable to arrive, so the conference became a hybrid event. This year, a significant part of the event was dedicated to the GLAM sector and cultural heritage issues, as well as to the intersection of consumer protection and copyright law. The event featured two GLAM@HOME panels and a GLAM@HOME Training session, which were streamed and recorded online to the public.

Take a look at the recording of these panel sessions here.

Organiser Péter Mezei welcomes participants and speakers to Szeged

Day 1 – GLAM@Home

Following the welcoming words of the main organizer and host of the event, Péter Mezei, the GLAM@HOME Panel started with an online presentation by keynote speaker, Maurizio Borghi (University of Torino), on rethinking the Commons in the era of data capitalism. Maurizio Borghi was followed by Camille Françoise (Creative Commons), who shared her thoughts on the future of open culture, with a copyright policy outlook.

Giulia Dore, Marta Arisi (University of Trento) and Pelin Turan (Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna) (all members of the H2020 ReCreating Europe WP5 GLAM research group) provided insights into a comparative EU analysis of the freedom of panorama and the reproduction of public domain art. The first panel ended with a presentation by Cristiana Sappa (IÉSEG School of Management) and Enrico Bondio (City University) on the challenges and opportunities for copyright stakeholders in the GLAM sector in the context of digitalisation.

The second GLAM@HOME Panel began with Svjetlana Ivanović (University of East Sarajevo), who addressed the issue of accessibility and digitisation of out-of-commerce works. She was followed by Francisco Duque Lima (KU Leuven), who analysed the intersection between non-commercial works and abandonware video games. Bohdan Widła (Jagiellonian University) closed the panel with a presentation on the question of scientific editions and first editions in the digital single market.

After the lunch break, a workshop-style session followed, namely the GLAM@HOME Training, where Péter Mezei and Ioanna Lapatoura (University of Nottingham) gave a training on NFTs and cultural heritage preservation, followed by the copyright practice of Francisco Duque Lima and Marta Arisi, who introduced the audience to the application of participatory problem-solving tools in the cultural heritage sector.

Franciso Duque Lima and Marta Arisi discuss the GLAM Training session

The first day ended with the ‘Junior Track’. Roya Pary Bouery (University Lyon 3 Jean Moulin) presented her research results on the restitution of artefacts looted during World War II and the role of the GLAM sector. Wojciech Biernacki (Adam Mickievicz University) talked about the relevance of the distinction of data, information, and knowledge in the light of exchange of non-personal data. The last speaker of the day was Flóra Anna Gubicz (Hungarian Intellectual Property Office), who shared her thoughts about whether the out-of-commerce regime will be a”game-changer” in the process of mass digitalisation.

Day 2 – Overlaps between Consumer Protection and IP Law

The second day of the conference was dedicated to overlaps between consumer protection and intellectual property. Kacper Szkalej (Lund University) theorised about the exhaustion of the making available right regarding the consumptive use of legal digital content. Simon Geiregat (Ghent University) shared his thoughts about the needs and wills of digital content consumers. The last segment was dedicated to the topics of IP and technology. Ioannis Revolidis (University of Malta), Radim Charvát (Masaryk University) and Antoni Rubí Puig (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) dedicated their presentations to the questions and problems raised by Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) from different perspectives. The session was closed by Anikó Grad-Gyenge (BME Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences), who talked about the impact of the development of EU law on the exclusive nature of copyright law.

A participant questions the speakers during a panel session

WIPS6 was a fantastic opportunity to host the series face-to-face in Szeged, for the first time in three years. Despite the challenges, the workshop successfully brought together junior and senior academics to discuss, debate and explore current issues in intellectual property law.

We look forward to welcoming you next year for WIPS7!

Participants and speakers enjoy lunch together at the MuSe Museum cafe, surrounded by the mountains of Trento, Italy.

Report: Open Up Museums! Workshop, Trento/Rovereto

June 15, 2022/in Past Events, Galleries, Libraries, Museums & Archives, News /by Rosie Allison

This May (26-27 May, 2022) saw a return to travelling for the reCreating Europe project, as project partners headed to Italy for the first of two GLAM @ Home workshops – ‘Open Up Museums! Prospects and Challenges of Accessibility, Diversity and Inclusion’, organised as a collaboration between projects DANCING, inDICEs. A valley enclosed on all sides by looming mountains is not the most obvious setting for a workshop which focuses on ‘openness’ – but the surroundings gave a dramatic backdrop to the two-day workshop. Amongst the full programme, participants enjoyed the superb hospitality of the two host museums – MuSe (Trento) and Mart (Rovereto).

The below report summarises the workshop content, and is interspersed with the thoughts of speakers and attendees who were asked to reflect on the question – ‘What does an ’open museum’ mean to you’?

Day 1 – MuSe (Trento)

Panel 1: Museums, intellectual property, and access to culture (Author: Giulia Dore)

‘An open museum is a museum that can listen to every kind of people, that can communicate with every kind of public, understand the requirements of different people and constantly tries to create, innovate and develop in terms of accessibility. An open museum can be considered as a house for everyone.’ – Patrizia Famà

The two-day-long program started with the Museums, intellectual property, and access to culture panel, which was opened by Patrizia Famà, who highlighted the importance of the cultural preservation institutions. Chaired by Giulia Dore (University of Trento), the opening panel explored the concepts of openness and access to culture in relation to the digital mission of museums. After an opening welcome from Roberto Caso (University of Trento), speakers highlighted the features of an extremely complex regulatory framework focusing on copyright, cultural heritage law and data management, discussing the challenges and opportunities of specific policies aimed at making museums open to all.

Kristina Petrasova (the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision) brought her experience as a researcher and cultural heritage practitioner to explore the choice of implementing open policies in the cultural sector.

Marta Arisi (University of Trento) illustrated one of the most controversial tasks of cultural heritage establishments, that is access and re-use of cultural data across copyright and data protection laws.

Barbara Pasa (University of Venice Iuav) deepened the discussion around the concept of artistic reuse of works exemplifying the carousel rides of CHIs that collide with their attempts to perform their mission to the fullest.

Fiona Macmillan (Birkbeck College, University of London) called for an inclusive community approach to cultural heritage, to be understood as the result of a social process where people enjoy, participate and share, hence giving true substance to the concept of open culture.

‘An open museum is a museum without restrictions, especially in terms of copyright law, which is imposed on museums that try to fulfill their public mission. As long as museums can do what the society makes them do, like preserve and share their resources.’ – Konrad Gliściński

Konrad Gliściński (Jagiellonian University/Centrum Cyfrowe) argued that copyright needs to adjust itself not to frustrate but rather to facilitate the many and increasingly more ambitious missions of CHIs.

A lively discussion around the question ‘How can CHIs concretely play an active and participatory role in the process of redesigning copyright?’ closed the panel with a message of hope: that they should all be aware, trained and fearless of tackling this issue together.

Panel 2: Barriers to access to digital culture for vulnerable groups, inclusivity and the implementation of the Marrakesh Treaty (Author: Lorenzo Beltrame)

‘An open museum is means to bring culture to everyone, everywhere, in every condition. This is why we commit spreading out our culture and the Egyptian culture as a means of communication with everyone around the world. This is why we involve minority communities and people who live in difficult situations, like prisons and hospitals, to virtually visit our museum. We bring the museum to the people with online collections and activities.’ – Alessia Fassone

This panel addressed issues of accessibility to cultural resources for vulnerable groups. Obstacles to full access experienced by people with visual impairments, blind people, minorities, marginalized groups and people with disabilities were discussed by the panelists.

Katie Donnellan, Delia Ferri and Noelle Higgins, from Maynooth University, presented their empirical research on the barriers to access to digital culture for minority groups and people with disabilities. Their research showed how, notwithstanding an improved sensibility in making cultural resources more accessible to vulnerable groups, issues of underrepresentation, cultural appropriation and stereotypes are still present. Their research also illustrated how there is a limited understanding of copyright law as a barrier and patchy knowledge about the Marrakesh Treaty and about how it can improve accessibility through copyright exception.

Giulia Rossello, from Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, presented her empirical research on the perceived benefits of the Marrakesh Treaty experienced by people with visual impairment in six European countries. Her research has brought evidence of how perceived benefits are linked to the type of visual impairment and the technology used.

‘An open museum is a place where I feel welcome, triggered and inspired to discover people’s stories and to somehow see my own history reflected. It’s a place where not only I am welcome, but also all people I can think of, to feel no hindrance to walk together with me, and where I don’t feel the pressure to leave. An open museum is ideally a 24/7 store where all people can come and ‘shop’ for a cultural experience that serves their passion for culture.’ – Sofie Taes

Sofie Taes, from Catholic University of Leuven, discussed the topic of misrepresentation and cultural bias embedded in the metadata of archived photographs from the point of view of archival curators.

Finally, Alessia Fassone and Federica Facchetti, from Museo Egizio in Turin, presented some examples of active inclusion of marginalized groups (like immigrants and prisoners) in the cultural activities of their museum.

Training session on legal and practical aspects related to digitization (Author: Marta Arisi)

‘An open museum for me is a museum where I can go anytime with my friend with disabilities or with a baby carriage, or with my luggage if I travel, and I don’t feel any problems with that.’ – Irina Tekhucheva

The training session was a thrilling moment of the GLAM@Home Workshop! Here, participants of different backgrounds and ages worked together to put the ideas and concepts of the morning session into practice. This took place in the impressive learning space at Muse, Trento.

In the first part, Maria Tartari and Francesca Manfredini from inDICEs explored the project and introduced its exciting participative tool – the Open Observatory. We learned how CHIs can build a participative digitisation strategy, exploring different venues and tips that truly enable Culture 3.0.

Later, Giulia Dore and Marta Arisi, as part of the reCreating Europe WP5 team from University of Trento, focusing on GLAM, acted as facilitators while groups worked to solve a case scenario. The case is available through the reCreating Europe stakeholders platform. We discussed copyright issues arising from a museum’s project for a collective digitisation campaign and art project, using public domain works and photographs thereof. Please feel free to contribute – follow-up on this controversial and fascinating debate is always welcome!

Day 2- Mart (Rovereto)

For the second day of the conference, the whole team travelled to the town of Rovereto. Keeping accessibility to culture in mind, the organisers created braille programmes, invited sign language interpreters, and live Italian-English translation was offered.

The programme was opened by Sara Di Giorgio (Ministero della Cultura) and Aldo Grassini (President of Museo Omero) who gave the first keynote speech of the day, discussing the importance of broadening the definition of cultural interaction to allow blind people access to cultural heritage.

Panel 3: Fostering Accessibility for Persons with Disabilities in Cultural Organisations: Legal Tools, Experiences and Best Practices (Author: Delia Ferri)

‘An open museum is accessible to all members of society, and especially vulnerable and marginalised groups, like persons with disabilities and persons belonging to minorities.’ – Katie Donnellan

The third panel of the workshop focused on fostering accessibility for persons with disabilities in cultural organisations. Chaired by Professor Delia Ferri (Maynooth University), Principal Investigator of the DANCING project, funded by the European research Council (grant agreement No. 864182), the panel included six speakers.

The first three presentations discussed legal tools that support access to culture, as well as barriers and facilitators to cultural participation for persons with disabilities. In particular, Léa Urzel (DANCING, Maynooth University) discussed the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as a main legal tool to fostering accessibility for persons with disabilities. Professor Ferri discussed the role of EU law in enhancing access to cultural goods and services, with particular attention on the Web Accessibility Directive and the European Accessibility Act. Dr. Ann Leahy (DANCING, Maynooth University) presented empirical findings of the DANCING research project focusing on factors that prevent or facilitate access to culture.

‘An open museum is a museum that is accessible to everyone, including persons with disabilities. A museum has to be open to everyone, so it needs to consider the diversity of the people, with their abilities and disabilities, so people can enjoy the museum on an equal basis with others.’ – Delia Ferri

Those speeches were followed by a set of presentations on best practices. Ginevra Niccolucci of PRISMA, expert in cultural heritage communication, showcased her work within Museo4U. Katia Franzoso of MuSe and Ornella Dossi of Mart shared their respective experiences and practices of making their exhibitions and venues accessible to all. The panel was bilingual, and simultaneous English – Italian translation was offered. This was complemented by Italian Sign Language interpretation to support accessibility.

Panel 4: Inhabiting culture: digitisation, copyright and creativity in placemaking (Authors: István Harkai and Marta Iljadica)

‘An open museum is a place that has to trust the younger generation.’ – Barbara Pasa

After the second and final keynote speech of the conference delivered by James Bradbourne (Director of Pinacoteca Brera), another exciting panel led by Marta Iljadica (CREATe, Glasgow University) considered placemaking, especially how places are created and experienced with particular reference to cultural heritage, digitisation, and copyright through multiple disciplinary perspectives.

Aleksandra Janus (Centrum Cyfrowe) kicked off the presentations by highlighting the value of digital cultural heritage and its importance to communities, identities, and places. Maria Della Lucia (University of Trento) then presented work exploring how places are made and re-made through culture, creativity, and tourism. Umberto Cecchinato (Università Roma Tre), presenting work undertaken with Massimo Rospocher (Istituto Storico Italo Germanico – Fondazione Bruno Kessler), spoke about the use of mobile application technologies to discover the hidden histories of cities as part of the Hidden Cities project and introduced the Hidden Trento app.

Finally, István Harkai (University of Szeged) and Francisco Duque Lima (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Centre for IT & IP Law) then shifted focus to video games by exploring the challenges of preserving virtual worlds, the challenges of live streaming video games and how this links to placemaking.

‘There are two types of openness. It’s partly a physical question, a museum has to be accessible to everyone in the community. And it’s partly a metaphysical question, that is the question of the ability to interact with the things that are on the display. If cultural heritage is about social process, and museums are about cultural heritage, then by definition a museum must be open, it must be a place that you can not only access, but also can use it to engage with other people.’ – Fiona Macmillan

The workshop was a superb opportunity for members of all three projects – reCreating Europe, inDICEs and DANCING – to reconnect, create new synergies and share inspiration. Furthermore, by setting the workshop in two museums that are striving to become ‘open museums’ in all sense of the phrase, the theoretical content was grounded in reality, and the practicalities of making cultural heritage accessible were ever present. The reCreating Europe project looks forward to continuing the collaborations formed during the organisation of this workshop, as it continues to work towards redefining copyright law for a culturally diverse, accessible and creative Europe.

ReCreating Europe at EPIP 2021

September 21, 2021/0 Comments/in Past Events, Activities, News, Workshops & Conferences, WP3 Authors and performers /by Rosie Allison

On 9 and 10 September 2021, several ReCreating Europe members participated in the 16th Annual Conference of the European Policy for Intellectual Property (EPIP) Association, dedicated to “IP and Future of Innovation” and hosted by the Centre of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Spanish National Research Council in Madrid.

The occasion was special, to say the least: for most of us, this was the first face-to-face conference since the outbreak of the pandemic. The prestigious venue of EPIP, which gathers more than 200 academics from across Europe every year, from different disciplines and backgrounds, made it incredibly meaningful for ReCreating Europe’s researchers to share the preliminary results of their work.

On September 9, the ReCreating Europe roundtable entitled ‘Centrifugal forces in EU copyright law’ took place. It was chaired by Martin Kretschmer, and participants included our project coordinator Caterina Sganga, WP3 members Ula Furgal and Thomas Margoni, WP3 leader Joost Poort, and WP6 leader João Pedro Quintais. Two illustrious respondents joined the roundtable, commenting on the research insights presented by the panelists: Brando Benifei, Member of the European Parliament, and Bence Kertész, from EU Commission DG CONNECT. See the full presentations on Zenodo.

The roundtable successfully managed to provide an overview of the main interim results of the project, highlighting gaps and dangers of today’s and tomorrow’s EU digital copyright scenario. ReCreating Europe’s researchers presented the innovative qualitative and quantitative research carried out in the past 20 months and the outcomes achieved by mapping and measuring the impact of the current multi-level legislative framework, with particular focus on copyright flexibilities, authors’ remuneration and bargaining power, copyright data ownership, transparency and AI technologies, and intermediaries and content moderation.

On September 10, another ReCreating Europe panel took place. This time the session was dedicated to the presentation of the results of the work conducted within WP2 on End-Users and Access to Culture. The panel featured three paper presentations: First, Giulia Rossello and Arianna Martinelli presented their ongoing empirical work under the title “Sci-Hub and Academics: Survey evidence from EU countries”, illustrating the survey they circulated across six European countries on academics’ perception of copyright law and the diffusion of academic digital piracy; Then, Giulia Priora and Caterina Sganga presented their upcoming paper “Betwitxt EU and national: the present and future of copyright flexibilities”, based on their legal mapping across all 27 Member States and related thorough comparative analysis of the legal understandings underlying EU copyright flexibilities; And finally, Peter Mezei and Istvan Harkai presented their published contribution entitled “End-user flexibilities in digital copyright law – An empirical analysis of end-user license agreements”, in which they explore the private ordering facet of copyright regulation and the way platforms’ end-users license agreements interact end-users’ freedoms and experiences. To see all the presentations from this session, they are available on Zenodo.

The EPIP conference turned out to be an incredibly fruitful moment of exchange and discussion of ReCreating Europe’s numerous preliminary results, and an important moment of assessment of the work done so far and our future plans. The cross-disciplinary research efforts and enthusiastic activities carried out since January 2020 from ReCreating Europe’s researchers met the genuine interest of academics, policymakers, and stakeholders in the audience – making the three-day-long conference not only an important moment of discussion but also an input for ReCreating Europe’s team for further work and collaborations within the scope of the project’s activities and objectives.

Stay tuned as further events will soon follow!

Reflections on the ‘State of Exceptions & Limitations: Copyright Flexibilities in the EU and its Member States’ Event

July 16, 2021/0 Comments/in Activities, Past Events /by Rosie Allison

To coincide with the implementation of the CDSM Directive, the State of Exceptions & Limitations: Copyright Flexibilities in the EU and its Member States webinar took place on 1 June 2021 from 10:00 to 13:30 CEST. The webinar was designed to tackle the complexity of copyright protection in Europe and present the preliminary results of activities within the ReCreating Europe project. It attracted a large and diverse audience and included keynote speeches, panel discussions, and presentations.

Keynote

The event kicked off with opening remarks from Professor Caterina Sganga, coordinator of ReCreating Europe. In a presentation titled ‘Rethinking digital copyright law for a culturally diverse, accessible and creative Europe – A brief introduction’, Sganga outlined the aims, members, activities, and expected impact of the project. Additionally, Dr Giulia Priora, postdoctoral researcher at Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, illustrated the work conducted within the framework of the ReCreating Europe project. This presentation focused on mapping EU and national legal sources on copyright flexibilities that generated the preliminary results shared during the webinar.

The workshop began with a keynote speech from Prof Séverine Dusollier, member of ReCreating Europe’s Advisory Board, titled ‘Looking for flexibility in exceptions’. Prof Dusollier shared her views on the system of copyright exceptions in the EU, highlighting how inflexibility stems from their scope, strict interpretation, and geographical fragmentation. On the contrary, emphasis was put on the flexibility embedded in the system of copyright economic rights, permitting to significantly expand them. Prof Dusollier’s conclusion was an inspiring one that suggested we conceptualise exceptions not as limits, but rather as substantial parts of the EU copyright legal framework. These take the form of privileges or “enabling devices for socially legitimate uses”.

Panel Sessions

Following the keynote, three concurrent panel sessions were dedicated to specific topics of relevance to the ReCreating Europe project.

The first panel focused on parody and quotation exceptions. Julien Cabay shared his views on the required public knowledge or familiarity about work to harmonise national parody exceptions with the presentation titled, ‘I don’t get it, is that a parody? Why autonomous and uniform interpretation will never lead to autonomous and uniform application’. Philipp Homar presented on ‘Parody and quotation: status quo and recent developments in Austria’, discussing recent national case law and the key role of ‘purpose of the use’ (rather than of the indication of the authors and source) in the case-by-case assessment. Kacper Szkalej presented on ‘The Swedish parody doctrine – ensuring legal certainty through flexibility’, drawing conclusions on the ‘fitness’ of this national legislative and judicial approach.

The second panel focused on teaching and scientific research uses. Ana Lazarova illustrated the need to ensure an adequate scope and applicability of the teaching exception across the EU, the technological neutrality of Art.5(3)(a) InfoSoc Directive, and the attempt to fix its optional nature by way of Art.5 CDSM Directive. Bernd Justin Jütte followed by outlining the weaknesses of the most recent provision, bringing to the table insights from the pre-CDSM Irish experience on the digital teaching exception. Katarzyna Klafkowska-Waśniowska shared her views on the consolidated flexibility displayed by the state-of-the-art teaching exception in Poland with a presentation titled ‘Educational needs and Polish solutions in the EU legal framework’. Finally, Ivana Kunda spoke about teaching exceptions in Croatia, pre-dating the proposed implementation of the CDSM Directive, and its prospective impact on the inflexibility of the exception in the national legal landscape.

The third panel focused on statutory licensing schemes and, in particular, on extended collective licenses (ECL). Eetu Huhta gave a detailed overview of the structure and functioning of ‘Extended Collective Licensing in Finland’. Rita Matulionyte reflected on the question: “ECL for out-of-commerce works in Lithuania: is it worth the effort?”, pointing out the uncertain outcomes and potential pitfalls of the system in Finland. Lastly, Matěj Myška shared his views on the ‘Czech Republic – case study: (Re)introducing ECL for out-of-commerce works’, with emphasis on national developments brought about by the CDSM Directive.

A presentation by Peter Mezei followed. He shared findings of ReCreating Europe’s study on copyright flexibilities and the end-user licensing agreements (EULAs) of selected online platforms and services. Throughout his presentation, he developed a structured end-user assessment of the terms and conditions relevant to user-generated content, family sharing, contractual modification, and procedural safeguards.

Roundtable

The webinar concluded with a roundtable discussion focused on the future of copyright flexibilities in the EU. Lionel Bently stressed the need to focus on the fundamental goals and purposes of EU copyright law and interrogating ourselves about the subsequent adequacy of its breadth and shape. In this light, he commented on the role, nature, and recent interpretation of the quotation exception by the CJEU. Next, Tatiana Synodinou presented soft law norms as instruments to bring flexibility into the EU copyright landscape and their roles vis-à-vis formal legislative intervention. Maurizio Borghi further added to the discussion, sharing views on achieving flexibilities in the construction of the scope of exclusive rights, especially reproduction and communication to the public, as an alternative, if not complementary, perspective on copyright flexibility. Martin Senftleben gave his take on the distinction between unremunerated permitted uses and the prohibition power of the copyright owners, suggesting that the EU should move towards remunerated use privileges.

To close the event, Caterina Sganga reflected on the need to find a common ground around the notions defining and characterising flexibilities in EU copyright law. She suggested that the re-systematisation currently carried out by ReCreating Europe could act as a valuable starting point to tackle some of the gaps and weaknesses in the current legal landscape.

To learn more about the project, its activities and upcoming events, please visit the news section of this website. If you’d like to watch the webinar online, please visit the project’s YouTube channel.

Reflections on ‘The Implementation of the CDSM Directive: Snapshots into the Future of the EU Copyright Law’

July 16, 2021/0 Comments/in Activities, Past Events /by Rosie Allison

We recently held The Implementation of the CDSM Directive: Snapshots into the Future of the EU Copyright Law Conference digitally on the 21st of June 2021 from 14:00 to 19:00 CEST. At this conference, interim results of research conducted by ReCreating Europe partners were discussed. The event coincided with ReCreating Europe’s cross-disciplinary and transnational research activities, specifically, the implementation of the DSM Directive.

Keynotes

The event commenced with two introductory keynotes by Raquel Xalabarder, Professor of Intellectual Property at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, and Maciej Szpunar, First Advocate General at the Court of Justice of the European Union.

During the first keynote speech – ‘The aftermath of CDMSD: where do we stand, where shall we go?’ – Raquel Xalabarder shared her thoughts on the CDSM Directive and its wanting implementation process, emphasising the key role of CJEU in the harmonisation of copyright in the EU. She highlighted some ‘good news’ within the Directive – the new mandatory exceptions, new rules on copyright contract law, and the de facto ‘choice-of-law’ rule overcoming territoriality in copyright. Moreover, she went on to warn of the risks of ‘bad laws’ that might stem from this, such as an overly restrictive and market-oriented interpretation of the digital teaching exception and the complex nature of Art.17.

During the second keynote speech, Maciej Szpunar, First Advocate General at the Court of Justice of the European Union, addressed the following question: “The future of EU copyright harmonization: which role for the CJEU?”. He shared his remarks on the challenge faced by the CJEU in assessing what should be decided by the legislator, and what the Court can express when it comes to digital technologies and digital markets. Considering recent CJEU judgements, he highlighted the centrality of the question of how to reconcile the need for effective copyright enforcement and the need for allowing the Internet to work smoothly, without hindering or disincentivising the activity of intermediaries and users. From a legal and copyright perspective, the Internet has been disruptive in many ways. For example, by enabling every demand to meet every supply, it has deeply challenged the notion of territoriality and international private law in general. According to AG Szpunar, the CJEU is looking closely into the modalities of the violation of copyrights and sui generis rights (e.g., in CV-Online Latvia) and into the way users operate online (as in Mircom International).

These two keynotes were then followed by an intermezzo, during which Martin Kretschmer, Professor and Director, CREATe at the University of Glasgow, and Paul Keller, President at Communia, presented two tools used to obtain quality information about the evolution of EU copyright law: the CDSMD implementation tracker, and the new copyrightexceptions.eu web tool.

Panels

Four panel sessions followed, in which speakers presented the results of ReCreating Europe’s research. Discussants expressed their views on the research and ways to move forward. Each represented different stakeholder categories, from legal experts to policymakers and civil society.

Panel 1 focused on remuneration and reversion rights. Rebecca Giblin, Associate Professor, University of Melbourne and Director, IP Research Institute of Australia (IPRIA), chaired the panel. This session began with a presentation by Ula Furgal, Research Fellow, CREATe at the University of Glasgow, on the implementation of Art.21 CDSMD, the ‘use it or lose it’ logic underlying the right of revocation and the related legal mapping conducted across Europe. Thereafter, Joost Poort, Associate Professor and Vice-Director, IViR University of Amsterdam, presented on the evolving creators and performing artists’ perspectives on copyright and digitisation as well as the upcoming ReCreating Europe survey on this issue.

Eanna Casey, Chairman of the Board, Societies’ Council for the Collective Management of Performers’ Rights (SCARP) highlighted the key importance of Art.18, acknowledging the need for protection and just remuneration to artists and performers, the risk of its fragmented implementation, and the missing effort by representation organisations to tackle more comprehensively other provisions relevant to artists and performers.

Cecile Deniard, Vice-President of ATLF and its representative with the European Council of Literary Translators’ Associations (CEATL) stressed the ‘creator-friendly’ nature of the final version of CDSMD which recognises their weaker position in the market. Moreover, CEATL ran a flash survey to their members, finding a lack of awareness and transparency with regard to EU copyright reform processes. For good implementation of Art.18 CDSM, transparency and collective bargaining are key to achieve fair and proportionate remuneration to individual authors and artists. The right of revocation is not a goal itself for creators, but rather a last-resort measure, with practicality still in question.

Panel 2 focused on copyright exceptions and limitations and was chaired by Christophe Geiger, Professor of Law, CEIPI University of Strasbourg. Caterina Sganga and Thomas Margoni, Research Professor at KU Leuven and Fellow at CREATe, presented on the legal mapping of EU copyright flexibilities (that has been ongoing within the framework of ReCreating Europe and will be made available in the form of an encompassing public database by the end of 2022) and, more specifically, on the assessment of the new text and data mining (TDM) exceptions. Thereafter, Agustin Reyna, Director, Legal and Economic Affairs at BEUC advocated a consumer-oriented approach to EU reform. This approach is not quite fully embraced by the EU legislator, even though proposals have been made in the past to elevate exceptions and limitations to user’s rights. Current exceptions could fail to comply with EU consumer law safeguards and remedies.

Jeremy Rollinson, Senior Director of European Government Affairs at Microsoft, highlighted TDM exceptions and praised how provisions significantly improved and expanded their scope in the final draft of the Directive and are now being transposed into national laws mostly by ‘copy-paste’. By and large, Articles 3 and 4 provide much more clarity to users on what they are allowed to do with machine-readable data for research purposes. Microsoft is following this closely. They believe the European Commission took the correct approach on TDM exceptions, supporting the development, among others, of Artificial Intelligence.

Panel 3 focused on the rules for automated content-filtering. The chair of the panel was Eleonora Rosati, Professor of Intellectual Property Law, University of Stockholm. João Pedro Quintais, Assistant Professor, IViR University of Amsterdam, and Sebastian Schwemer, Associate Professor, CIIR University of Copenhagen, offered a detailed analysis to reconcile right holders, end-users, and platforms’ interests promoted by Art.17 CDSM Directive and its interplay with the Digital Services Act (DSA).

In response to the abovementioned presentation, Cédric Manara (Head of Copyright, Google) pointed out that the regulatory scene related to Art.17 CDSM Directive is still very much in flux, and that filtering is just one of the options that platforms have at their disposal to comply with Art.17 of the new Directive. This is also evident in the Guidelines recently released by the European Commission. National parliaments, and national courts, in turn, play a key role at this stage by transposing Art.17 at a political and legal level. The impact of platforms, which will have to implement mechanisms to manage the workflow occurring on them and manage all the sorts of claims (licensing claims, blocking claims, etc.), depends on the national implementations of the Directive as well as on the level of activity of right holders: the extent to which they will bring claims ex Art.17 and requests to the platform will significantly shape the post-CDSM online scenario.

Furthermore, Martin Husovec (Assistant Professor at LSE), focused on the question of fragmentation, suggesting that the CDSM Directive might have actually enhanced the level of fragmentation, rather than fostering harmonisation of the Digital Single Market. Art.17 represents an applicable example in this regard, with a decisive role being played by the CJEU Peterson decision on it.

Panel 4 focused on the preservation of cultural heritage, chaired by Andrea Wallace, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Exeter. Giulia Dore, Research Fellow, University of Trento, and Marta Iljadica, Lecturer in Law, CREATe at the University of Glasgow, discussed the role and implementation of Art.6 CDSM Directive and the preservation of cultural heritage. They shared the preliminary results of the GLAM survey conducted by ReCreating Europe’s WP5. Serving as a discussant, Ariadna Matas, Policy Advisor at Europeana, spoke of the importance of having a new exception, helping to enhance harmonisation in GLAM sector regulation. However, he also stressed the need to take a more complete and holistic approach to help digitisation processes in cultural preservation. Additionally, Benjamin White, Chair of the Copyright Working Group at LIBER, picked up on the thread of the discussion on Art.6 CDSM Directive and further commented on the empirical data collected by ReCreating Europe. He drew attention to the need to embrace a global perspective over the preservation of cultural goods that particularly looks at approaches towards types of work, formats, and additional limitations to such uses. He asserted that this must assess the steps undertaken by the CDSM Directive as a good European development overall.

The conference concluded with remarks from the host, Caterina Sganga, and a call to explore the work of the project and possibilities to collaborate.

Public and Regulatory Framework of Online Intermediaries: Workshop Report

May 19, 2020/0 Comments/in Activities, Past Events, Workshops & Conferences, WP6 /by niguli

Following what can only be described as a long and tortuous process, the EU legislative bodies adopted the Copyright in the Digital Single Market (CDSM) Directive in June 2019. Article 17 (former Article 13) on the new liability regime of online content sharing service providers (OCSSPs) occupies the center stage of the discourse on CDSM. Read more