International Law

European Copyright Legislation Proposal

By Karl-Friedrich Lenz

A group of copyright scholars has developed a proposal for European copyright legislation, online here.

Their proposals seem to be reasonable and worthy of support. On first impression, the best feature is how they group various limitations with similar functions, and how they clearly include guidelines on compensation for their limitations. For example, their proposed Article 5.3 reads:

Art. 5.3 ? Uses Permitted to Promote Social, Political and Cultural Objectives

(1) The following uses forthe purpose of promoting social, political and cultural objectives are permitted without authorisation and without remuneration, and to the extent justified by the purpose of the use:

(a) use for the benefit of persons with a disability, which is directly related to the disability and of a non-commercial nature;

(b) use to ensure the proper performance of administrative, parliamentary or judicial proceedings or public security;

(c) use for the purpose of non-commercial archiving by publicly accessible libraries, educational establishments or museums, and archives.

(2) The following uses for the purpose of promoting important social, political and cultural objectives are permitted without authorisation, but only against payment of remuneration, and to the extent justified by the purpose of the use:

(a) reproduction by a natural person for private use, provided that the source from which the reproduction is made is not an obviously infringing copy;

(b)    use for educational purposes.

I am pleased to see no exception for Internet search engines on that list. And if this kind of framework becomes accepted, anyone proposing to introduce such a limitation as opposed to just creating it as case law will need to address how much the search engines need to pay the copyright holders.

Full post as published by Lenz Blog on April 29, 2010 (boomark / email).