New Regulation of Copyright and Related Rights in the Digital Single Market

Directive 2019/790 on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market, to be transposed by the Member States into their legislations by 7 June 2021, adapts the European copyright framework to technological progress and to the new ways of using copyrighted works facilitated by digital technology and the global communication networks. To this end, it reforms copyright exemptions and restrictions in the digital and cross-border environment, provides harmonised rules for improving licensing practices to provide a wider access to creative content, and introduces new rules to create a well-functioning copyright market. Fierce public polemics, at the time of the adoption of the directive, focused in particular on those new solutions that are supposed to force online giants such as Facebook, Google and Twitter, to share their revenues with holders of copyright and related rights. Critics feel that ordinary internet users will be more affected by the new rules. In the worst case, the new rules may push copyright holders into even greater dependence on big internet corporations. Less attention has been paid to other, undoubtedly useful novelties, which will facilitate some uses of copyrighted works in the digital environment.

Keywords: copyright law, digital single market, internet, copyright exemptions, hyperlinks, content filtering, collective rights management.