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Pirate Party MEP nails her colours to the mast

By ucylcjh, on 30 January 2015

Julia Reda, MEP for the German Piratenpartei, has just published the first draft of her report on copyright reform commissioned by the European Parliament. You can also read Ms Reda’s blog, here . The measures recommended in the report are very favourable to users of copyright material, including the reduction of the standard copyright term to the author’s lifetime plus 50 years (the minimum requirement of the Berne Convention). Among other measures the Report also recommends:

Extending the Text and Data Mining exception to cover TDM for any purpose (including commercial); Creating a new exception permitting libraries to lend e-books, “…irrespective of the place of access”

The report also favours a new piece of EU legislation replacing the Copyright Directive, which would apply immediately across the EU without requiring national implementation (it would need to be a “Regulation” as opposed to the current Copyright Directive).

It would follow that the various exceptions included in the new legislation would be mandatory in all member states. The current list of exceptions in Article 5 of the Directive resembles a smorgasbord where the member states can select the exceptions of their choice while leaving others on the table. The current situation creates complexity and uncertainty around cross border access to copyright material within the EU. It will be interesting to see how Julia Reda’s report is received by the European Parliament and other EU bodies.