KR21 National Coordinators’ IViR Copyright Summer Course Reflections
Pirjo Kangas and Ophélie Wang, KR21 national coordinators for Finland and France, respectively, completed the Summer Course on International Copyright Law & Policy 2024 that took place from July 1 to 5 in Amsterdam. Organised by the University of Amsterdam’s Institute for Information Law (IViR), the course offers lectures by world-renowned professors on topical issues in copyright law. Among the themes discussed during the week were the international framework for copyright, relevant international agreements, copyright and human rights, authors’ rights and remuneration and the collective administration of rights, culminating in a final day dedicated to copyright and artificial intelligence (AI). Pirjo and Ophélie share their IViR Copyright Summer Course Reflections on this exciting opportunity.
Comparing different copyright systems
Given the international focus of the course, we were able to compare the European copyright landscape to other systems, especially that of the United States. The session about copyright exceptions and limitations led by Professors Pamela Samuelson (Berkeley Law School) and Bernt Hugenholz highlighted the differences between the US fair use doctrine and the European way of including more prescriptive exceptions and limitations to the copyright law. It became apparent that the European model often lacks flexibility, especially when it comes to emerging technologies and the new copyright law issues that relate to them – a conclusion supported by KR21’s comparative study on open norms in seven jurisdictions. These differences were a highlight in our IViR Copyright Summer Course.
After working on Knowledge Rights 21 objectives in a national coordinator role for a while, it was interesting to participate in lectures and discussions discussing issues important for KR21, such as the flexibility of copyright norms in Europe vs. other countries and the legislated secondary publishing rights in European countries. In Professor Bernt Hugenholz’s lecture, secondary publishing rights were mentioned as one possible future L&E (limitation or exception) in the EU legislation. During recent years, the European Commission DG for Research and Innovation has published reports about these topics, such as the 2022 study on EU copyright and related rights and access to and reuse of scientific publications, including open access and the 2024 report on improving access to and reuse of research results, publications and data for scientific purposes.
The course also allowed us to meet other professionals from all over the world, working with copyright in very different capacities, from cultural rights activists to academics to collective management organisations (CMOs) or tech companies’ legal experts. Exchanging views with such a diverse and invested group, in and outside of the classroom, made the programme even richer by showing us the actual interests at stake in theoretical copyright issues.
Librarians as copyright activists
Indeed, one of the main takeaways from this summer course was the realisation that copyright is, in fact, a matter of policy choices. Copyright law is often seen as a set of abstract and fixed rules, but it has real-life implications and can be reformed to advance or protect specific interests. The different actors in the copyright landscape, such as authors, rightsholders, researchers, or politicians, each have their perspectives and objectives as well as lobbying power, and final legislative texts often are compromises.
The course concluded with a policy exercise led by Professor Sean Flynn (American University) in which groups reworked the existing EU copyright legislation’s teaching and text and data mining exceptions of the CDSM and InfoSoc Directives. In this exercise, we focused on how the laws could be modified to favour firstly, innovation and, secondly, the creation and circulation of scientific knowledge. The exercise was a crucial part of our IViR Copyright Summer Course.
We came back from the summer course even more convinced that libraries should participate in copyright advocacy – this is a matter we must take into our own hands!
6 September 2024
