Copyright protection in the information society
The European Parliament's Legal Affairs Committee adopted a report by Italian MEP Enrico Boselli on the harmonisation of copyright and related rights in the information society on 5 February. The adoption of the report follows the Council's common position on the subject. The aim of the directive is to update EU legislation on copyright in order to take account of new technologies and to implement new international obligations. Under the directive, parties would in principle enjoy exclusive rights regarding the reproduction, communication and dissemination of their work, although certain exceptions would exist. One such exception relates to the protection of authors' rights. The Council's common position lays down four cases where reproduction is allowed, for example for teaching or scientific research purposes. In these cases the Council position states that the source, including the author's name, should be indicated 'whenever possible'. The Legal Affairs Committee, fearing that this could leave the door open to a range of violations, requests that this rule is amended so that the source should always be indicated 'except where it proves impossible'. The committee would also like to shorten the deadline for the directive's entry into force from 24 months, as proposed by Council, to 18 months. The committee's recommendation will be discussed by Parliament during the February part-session.