The European Audiovisual Observatory, part of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, published a report, on Monday 3 August, on copyright licensing rules in the EU. In particular, it devotes an entire chapter to the new Copyright Directive 2019/790/EC and addresses a series of key principles, such as territoriality, licensing practices, etc.
The Copyright Directive is entering a crucial phase as the deadline for transposition into national law is 7 June 2021. In this context and following a dialogue with stakeholders, the European Commission published, on 27 July, a targeted consultation on Article 17 of this text on the value gap.
Open until 10 September 2020, this targeted consultation presents the first reflections of the Commission services on the basis of the six meetings organised with stakeholders and will feed into the Commission's final orientations (see EUROPE 12428/26).
As regards the difficult issue of filtering, the paper recalls that “service providers should remain free to choose the technology or solution they consider most appropriate to comply with the best-efforts obligation in their specific situation, as the principle of proportionality should be taken into account”. It goes on to state that the use of a technological solution is not a prerequisite.
Link to the Council of Europe report: https://bit.ly/2Dpl3tf , and the targeted consultation: https://bit.ly/3guZbLS (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)