Theano Thiopoulou
The EU Copyright Directive is bringing major changes to the internet and information, and – formally – Member States should have transposed European legislation into national law by Monday 7 June.
The new directive protects creativity in the digital age, bringing tangible benefits to citizens, the creative sector, the press, researchers, teachers and cultural heritage institutions across the EU. At the same time, it will make cross-border distribution of certain programs to their online services.
Yesterday the European Commission published its guidelines on Article 17 of the new Copyright Directive, which sets out new rules for content exchange platforms.
Article 17 stipulates that providers of content sharing platforms (eg Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, etc.) must work with copyright holders in good faith to ensure that unauthorized content is not available. protected projects, through their services. This ultimately means that all platforms whose content comes from their users will be liable for deleting content if this infringes copyright.
But in order to achieve this, these platforms will need to develop and use, on a regular basis, special filtering technology that will be able to detect content that may infringe copyright. Excluded from this obligation are websites that have been operating for less than three years, have an annual turnover of less than 10,000,000 euros and less than 5 million unique monthly visitors.
The guidelines take into account the views gathered from stakeholders and Member States that participated in meetings organized by the Commission to discuss best practices for cooperation between online content exchange platforms and rights holders. New legislation introduced by the Broadcasting Directive ensures that EU citizens have access to a wider choice of online and cross-border programs.
The directive makes it easier for broadcasters to make certain programs available on their live television or broadcast services in all Member States, while ensuring that creators are adequately remunerated for their use of their content. It also simplifies the distribution of more broadcast channels by broadcasters.
Regarding the background of the Directive, in September 2016 the European Commission proposed the modernization of EU copyright legislation in the context of the digital single market, in order to ensure its relevance to the digital age. The directives were adopted in April 2019. Member States must now notify the Commission of their laws transposing the two Directives into national law.
