New perspectives for sampling: US and German developments and what comes next

The use of samples from sound recordings is establihsed parctice, however its legality in absence of a license is still unclear. Two appeals in the US and in germany might have shown the direction for future cases by permittng sampling in relatively narrowly described circumstances. This article discusses potential consequences from these recet judgments and their relavance for music samling as a cultural technique

Conceptualizing a ‘Right to Research’ and its Implications for Copyright Law, An International and European Perspective

Copyright, at international, European and national levels, does not provide a legal framework that prioritizes enabling and incentivizing research using protected works and information to the extent necessary and desirable in a digital, data-driven society in order to build a sustainable ecosystem for innovation and creativity. While small progress has been made, for example with the recent introduction of specific exceptions for research purposes and for text and data-mining in certain national legislations as well as in the European Union law, a horizontal approach towards a more research-friendly copyright ecosystem has so far failed to evolve. By revisiting international and European human and fundamental rights instruments as well as the aims and objectives of the European Union, it is possible to distill research as a constitutional and ethical imperative. Conceptualizing a fundamental ‘Right to Research’ and integrating it into a constitutional dialogue provides a convincing argument to rethink copyright towards a research-oriented normative system

Conceptualizing a \u27Right to Research\u27 and Its Implications for Copyright Law: An International and European Perspective

Copyright, at international, European and national levels, does not provide a legal framework that prioritizes enabling and incentivizing research using protected works and information to the extent necessary and desirable in a digital, data-driven society in order to build a sustainable ecosystem for innovation and creativity. While small progress has been made, for example with the recent introduction of specific exceptions for research purposes and for text and data mining in certain national legislations as well as in the European Union law, a horizontal approach towards a more research-friendly copyright ecosystem has so far failed to evolve. By revisiting international and European human and fundamental rights instruments as well as the aims and objectives of the European Union, it is possible to distill research as a constitutional and ethical imperative. Conceptualizing a fundamental ‘Right to Research’ and integrating it into a constitutional dialogue provides a convincing argument to rethink copyright towards a research-oriented normative system

Advocate General suggests that Germany cannot rely on copyright to protect confidential information

Opinion of Advocate General Szpunar in Funke Medien NRW GmbH v Federal Republic of Germany, C-469/17, EU: C: 2018: 870, 25 October 2018A Member State is not a beneficiary of fundamental rights protection and cannot invoke copyright to keep information confidential

Zooming in on Education: An Empirical Study on Digital Platforms and Copyright in the United Kingdom, Italy, and the Netherlands

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a significant change in the types of teaching infrastructure used in higher education. This article examines how the use of commercial digital platforms for educational purposes impacted on teaching practices. At the same time, it shines a light on the experiences and (legal) perceptions of educators as an essential category of stakeholders within the EU copyright legal framework. Against the background of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the study reflects on the process of ‘platformisation’ of education and delves into copyright-related aspects of the online teaching and learning environments. The study is based on the presumption that the pandemic-induced transformation of education would require institutional adjustments as well as an enhanced level of copyright awareness among educators. It provides data and evidence based on an empirical study conducted in 2021 surveying over 200 educators in the UK, Italy, and the Netherlands. The results, presented in this article, point at several problematic aspects in relation to ‘platformised’ educational practices and materials, including a low awareness and misled perceptions on copyright legal rules and an increasing role of digital commercial platforms as factual regulators of the higher education sector

Capturing the Uncapturable: The Relationship between Universities and Copyright through the Lens of the Audio-Visual Lecture Capture Policies

The COVID-19 pandemic has consolidated a double move. On the one hand, universities are becoming increasingly aware of the strategic value of copyright. On the other hand, the necessity to embrace distance education is making universities realise that there is a wealth of issues that go beyond ownership of research outputs and reprography rights. Understanding the role of universities as copyright subjects today requires understanding the rise of the ‘platformisation’ of learning, which this chapter does by analysing the audio-visual lecture capture policies of the largest universities in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy and France. The rules on lecture capture represent a meaningful entry point to investigate strengths and weaknesses of the universities’ approach to the creation and use of protected content online. Through this lens, it is possible to reflect on both the underlying exacerbated power imbalance between universities and teachers, and the diverging approach towards copyright law across the European higher education landscape. First, the chapter considers whether the selected universities had a specific policy on lecture capture, and, if so, what it covered, and where the default rule sat in the continuum between opt-out and opt-in. Then, it investigates issues of ownership of the lecture recordings, including the incorporated slides and other materials as well as the performance rights. Ownership rules significantly affect who can exploit the recordings and under which conditions, thus raising delicate and timely questions on the management and commercialisation of recorded lectures, the protection of moral rights and the retention of economic ones. Despite stark differences between the selected countries’ approach, the clear trend towards an increased expectation that teachers have to record their lectures epitomises the digital dispossession that is inherent to the platformisation of education. Nonetheless, the oft-forgotten rights in performances can still play a role in pursuing a fairer balance between the competing interests at play

Copyright and Remote Teaching in the Time of COVID-19: A Study of Contractual Terms and Conditions of Selected Online Services

The spread of the COVID-19 virus forced educational institutions to transition to online education. This contribution analyses, through the lens of copyright law, the terms and conditions of some selected online services used to deliver remote teaching. The study highlights the most problematic terms and their detrimental effects on remote teaching by focusing on copyright ownership, liability, and content moderation