Taking Fundamental Rights Seriously in the Digital Services Act’s Platform Liability Regime

This article highlights how the EU fundamental rights framework should inform the liability regime of platforms foreseen in secondary EU law, in particular with regard to the reform of the E-commerce directive by the Digital Services Act. In order to identify all possible tensions between the liability regime of platforms on the one hand, and fundamental rights on the other hand, and in order to contribute to a well-balanced and proportionate European legal instrument, this article addresses these potential conflicts from the standpoint of users (those who share content and those who access it), platforms, regulators and other stakeholders involved. Section 2 delves into the intricate landscape of online intermediary liability, interrogating how the E-Commerce Directive and the emerging Digital Services Act grapple with the delicate equilibrium between shielding intermediaries and upholding the competing rights of other stakeholders. The article then navigates in Section 3 the fraught terrain of fundamental rights as articulated by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) under the aegis of the European Convention on Human Rights and the EU Charter. This section poses an urgent inquiry: Can the DSA's foundational principles reconcile these legal frameworks in a manner that fuels democracy rather than stifles it through inadvertent censorship?. Section 4 then delves into the intricate relationship between fundamental rights and the DSA reform. This section conducts a comprehensive analysis of the key provisions of the DSA, emphasizing how they underscore the importance of fundamental rights. In addition to mapping out the framework's strengths, the section also identifies existing limitations within the DSA and suggests potential pathways for further refinement and improvement. This article concludes by outlining key avenues for achieving a balanced and fundamental rights-compliant regulatory framework for platform liability within the EU

The Exception for Text and Data Mining (TDM) in the Proposed Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market - Legal Aspects - In-Depth Analysis for the Directorate-General for Internal Policies of the Union, Policy Department Citizens Rights and Constitutional Affairs, European Parliament

This in-depth analysis, commissioned by the European Parliament’s Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs at the request of the Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI-Committee), is a contribution to the workshop on "Text and data mining" held on 22 February 2018 in Brussels. It provides an analysis of the Commission’s Proposal (which introduces in Article 3 a mandatory exception to copyright allowing to carry out text and data mining of protected works), assesses its positive and negative impacts and provides some suggestions for possible improvements. Advantages of introducing an “open clause” on top of an enumerated list of exceptions to address some of the related problems are also reviewed

The Introduction of a Neighbouring Right for Press Publisher at EU Level: The Unneeded (and Unwanted) Reform

This article discusses the proposed introduction in EU law of neighbouring rights for press publishers for the digital uses of their publications. This proposal is included in the European Commission’s Draft Directive on copyright in the Digital Single Market of 14 September 2016, which forms an important part of the ongoing reform of copyright at EU level. This article highlights the challenges for the Digital Single Market associated with the establishment of an additional layer of 28 national rights and their related exceptions and limitations. By reference to the “pie theory”, it also shows how this proposal risks redistributing resources from creators to publishers. Further, this article underlines the missing causal link between the proposed reform and market efficiency justifications. In contrast, existing empirical evidence shows negative externalities for smaller publishers and users at large. This evidence — together with the enclosure of the public domain that comes from the creation of new neighbouring rights and their retroactive application — might serve as a warning of the potential negative repercussions of this proposal on plurality of sources, users’ access to information — and more generally on democratization. In conclusion, this article recommends refraining from the introduction of neighbouring rights for press publisher online because they would (i) relent — rather than promote — the creation of a Digital Single Market, (ii) be detrimental for the interests of creators, smaller market players and users, while (iii) not solving any systemic issues of the EU copyright system. This article is based on the Opinion of the Centre for International Intellectual Property Studies (CEIPI) at the University of Strasbourg on the European Commission’s copyright reform proposal, with a focus on the introduction of neighbouring rights for press publishers in EU law. It was sent to the European Commission on 2 December 2016

The EU Commission's Proposal to Reform Copyright Limitations: A Good but Far Too Timid Step in the Right Direction

The Centre for International Intellectual Property Studies (CEIPI) is an institute devoted to education and research in intellectual property and is a constituent part of the University of Strasbourg. CEIPI analyses and comments the main developments in the area of intellectual property at national, European and international levels. From this perspective, the European Commission’s Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on copyright in the Digital Single Market of 14 September 2016 — and more generally any step towards copyright reform in the European Union — is of particular interest to CEIPI, which hereby intends to react on the proposal to introduce in EU law new mandatory copyright exceptions and limitations to promote the Digital Single Market

Text and Data Mining in the Proposed Copyright Reform: Making the EU Ready for an Age of Big Data? - Legal Analysis and Policy Recommendations

This opinion aims at examining the Text and Data Mining (TDM) process and its legal aspects in the context of the Commission’s proposal for a Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, which introduces in its Art. 3 a mandatory exception to copyright allowing for the carrying out of text and data mining of protected works. The discussion starts with the examination of several critical questions. At which stage of the TDM process are intellectual property rights affected? Do already existing exceptions and limitations apply to some TDM activities and techniques? What are the problems faced by researchers in applying them? This paper then considers the potential of a new mandatory TDM exception to drive innovation in the EU. The advantages of introducing an “open clause” on top of an enumerated list of exceptions to address some of the related problems are also reviewed. The study provides an in-depth analysis of the Commission’s Proposal, assesses its positive and negative impacts, and provides some suggestions for possible improvements. It concludes by recommending a more ambitious reform with regard to TDM in order to get the EU into shape for the age of Big Data

Text and Data Mining: Articles 3 and 4 of the Directive 2019/790/EU

Our society is in the midst of an explosion of data: ‘there was 5 exabytes of information created between the dawn of civilization through 2003, but that much information is now created every 2 days, and the pace is increasing’. In 2014, there were 2.4 billion internet users. That number grew to 3.8 billion in 2017 and new data is created by the quintillions of bytes every day. Together with mobile devices, the Internet of Things (IoT) contributes to this huge data production. In the big data era, orientating within this magma of online data has become an extremely complex but crucial task, also leading to complex issues in terms of regulation of this new environment. The European Union seems at first to have acknowledged the potential of monitoring data, putting in place measures to unlock TDM potentialities. On 14 September 2016, the European Commission published a Proposal for a Directive on copyright in the Digital Single Market, which was approved into Directive 2019/790/EU on 17 April 2019 (“DSM Directive”). Inter alia, this copyright reform would like to improve access to protected works across borders within the Digital Single Market (DSM) to boost research and innovation. To this end, the DSM Directive includes a set of new mandatory exceptions and limitations. In particular, the reform introduces two specific limitations for TDM. In this chapter, the introduction of mandatory TDM limitations in European law will be assessed against the international and European framework of copyright exceptions and limitations by considering the rationales for such an exception and the positive and negative impacts of the reform. Giving the importance of TDM activities for the economic development in the EU and its innovative environment, the question arises if the reform lives up to the expectations. Although, following our previous suggestions, the scope of the limitation has been broadened, the final text of the reform still limits the full exploitation of the potential of data for research and innovation, for start-ups as well as more generally for the broader access to works and the information they contain