keyboard_tab Diritto d'autore 2019/0790 EN

(3) Rapid technological developments continue to transform the way works and other subject matter are created, produced, distributed and exploited.

  New business models and new actors continue to emerge.

  Relevant legislation needs to be future-proof so as not to restrict technological development.

  The objectives and the principles laid down by the Union copyright framework remain sound.

  However, legal uncertainty remains, for both rightholders and users, as regards certain uses, including cross-border uses, of works and other subject matter in the digital environment.

  As stated in the Commission Communication of 9 December 2015 entitled ‘Towards a modern, more European copyright framework’, in some areas it is necessary to adapt and supplement the existing Union copyright framework, while keeping a high level of protection of copyright and related rights. This Directive provides for rules to adapt certain exceptions and limitations to copyright and related rights to digital and cross-border environments, as well as for measures to facilitate certain licensing practices, in particular, but not only, as regards the dissemination of out-of-commerce works and other subject matter and the online availability of audiovisual works on video-on-demand platforms, with a view to ensuring wider access to content.

  It also contains rules to facilitate the use of content in the public domain.

  In order to achieve a well-functioning and fair marketplace for copyright, there should also be rules on rights in publications, on the use of works or other subject matter by online service providers storing and giving access to user-uploaded content, on the transparency of authors' and performers' contracts, on authors' and performers' remuneration, as well as a mechanism for the revocation of rights that authors and performers have transferred on an exclusive basis.

(25) Cultural heritage institutions are engaged in the preservation of their collections for future generations. An act of preservation of a work or other subject matter in the collection of a cultural_heritage_institution might require a reproduction and consequently require the authorisation of the relevant rightholders. Digital technologies offer new ways of preserving the heritage contained in those collections but they also create new challenges. In view of those new challenges, it is necessary to adapt the existing legal framework by providing for a mandatory exception to the right of reproduction in order to allow such acts of preservation by such institutions.

(56) For the purposes of this Directive, it is necessary to define the concept of ‘ press_publication’ so that it only covers journalistic publications, published in any media, including on paper, in the context of an economic activity that constitutes a provision of services under Union law.

  The press_publications that should be covered include, for instance, daily newspapers, weekly or monthly magazines of general or special interest, including subscription-based magazines, and news websites. Press publications contain mostly literary works, but increasingly include other types of works and other subject matter, in particular photographs and videos. Periodical publications published for scientific or academic purposes, such as scientific journals, should not be covered by the protection granted to press_publications under this Directive.

  Neither should that protection apply to websites, such as blogs, that provide information as part of an activity that is not carried out under the initiative, editorial responsibility and control of a service provider, such as a news publisher.

(60) Publishers, including those of press_publications, books or scientific publications and music publications, often operate on the basis of the transfer of authors' rights by means of contractual agreements or statutory provisions. In that context, publishers make an investment with a view to the exploitation of the works contained in their publications and can in some instances be deprived of revenues where such works are used under exceptions or limitations such as those for private copying and reprography, including the corresponding existing national schemes for reprography in the Member States, or under public lending schemes. In several Member States, compensation for uses under those exceptions or limitations is shared between authors and publishers. In order to take account of this situation and to improve legal certainty for all parties concerned, this Directive allows Member States that have existing schemes for the sharing of compensation between authors and publishers to maintain them.

  That is particularly important for Member States that had such compensation-sharing mechanisms before 12 November 2015, although in other Member States compensation is not shared and is due solely to authors in accordance with national cultural policies. While this Directive should apply in a non-discriminatory way to all Member States, it should respect the traditions in this area and not oblige Member States that do not currently have such compensation-sharing schemes to introduce them.

  It should not affect existing or future arrangements in Member States regarding remuneration in the context of public lending.

(68) Online content-sharing service providers should be transparent with rightholders with regard to the steps taken in the context of cooperation.

  As various actions could be undertaken by online_content-sharing_service_providers, they should provide rightholders, at the request of rightholders, with adequate information on the type of actions undertaken and the way in which they are undertaken.

  Such information should be sufficiently specific to provide enough transparency to rightholders, without affecting business secrets of online_content-sharing_service_providers. Service providers should, however, not be required to provide rightholders with detailed and individualised information for each work or other subject matter identified.

  That should be without prejudice to contractual arrangements, which could contain more specific provisions on the information to be provided where agreements are concluded between service providers and rightholders.