Changes with regard to copyright and Copyright Directive

On 26 March 2019, the European Parliament adopted the Directive on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market, which has been a subject of intense debate in the EU Member States. The opponents of the new regulation warn that it represents a threat to the freedom of speech and expression on the Internet. The proponents of the Directive emphasise that the Directive is up to date and adapts copyrights to technological progress. The Directive will also bring changes to the Slovene copyright law. 

The Directive establishes a related right of the publishers of the press publications based on which news publishers and publishers of other press publications will obtain the right to compensation for the use of content or parts thereof. The right covers all the Internet uses of press publications by the providers of information society services with the exception of particular words or very short snippets. The essence of the change is in the fact that web browsers and others, who publish summaries of articles, will have to pay their authors for this “re-ues”. The opponents of the Directive recall that the measure is inappropriate for copyright protection and will negatively affect the independent journalism and promote the use of information from unverified sources. 

In Article 17 the Directive imposes an obligation to check the “potential copyright infringements” on the online platforms, especially image and video sharing platforms, such as YouTube and Facebook. This means that everyone will have to set up algorithms for the recognition of the copyrighted works. In accordance with the Directive the platform providers will have to obtain a licence from the rightsholders in order to make user content available to the public, otherwise they will be held liable for the infringement, if the users upload on the platform a content (for example a song) for which they do not hold the rights. They can avoid liability if they prevent access to the infringing content with the use of filters. The measure brings some uncertainty with regard to its use in practice. There is a risk that the owners of the web portals will filter and block specific content which may infringe freedom of speech.

Less controversial are Directive provisions concerning fair compensation for authors and performers. Article 18 establishes a principle of appropriate and proportionate remuneration which ensures that where authors and performers license or transfer their exclusive rights for the exploitation of their works or other subject matter, they are entitled to receive appropriate and proportionate remuneration. The Directive also provides for the contract adjustment mechanism when the remuneration originally agreed for the exploitation of copyrights turns out to be disproportionately low compared to all the subsequent relevant revenues derived from the exploitation of the works or performances. The Member States now have two years to implement the Directive.