Share your views on stakeholder engagement in EU copyright policy

The 1709 Blog is happy to share the survey below, at the kind request of Agnieszka Vetulani-Cęgiel, and Trisha Meyer. Do take part!

Share your views on stakeholder engagement in EU copyright policy 

Are you involved in EU copyright policy? Did you interact with the European Commission on the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive?

We would be delighted if you would take 10 minutes to complete a survey on the European Commission's practice to involve relevant stakeholders in copyright policy. We promise that the survey is short: only four substantive questions that can be easily answered over your sweltering-weather-in-Belgium ice cream break!

Who are we? Agnieszka Vetulani-Cęgiel, a postdoctoral researcher in Political Science and Journalism at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (Poland) and Trisha Meyer, an assistant professor in Media Studies at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium). We specialize in EU stakeholder engagement, copyright, press publishers' rights and intermediary liability.

What is the context? The results of this survey will be incorporated in a journal article on ‘evaluating good governance and civil society participation in EU online copyright policy’. In this paper, we also conduct a longitudinal analysis of how many and which type of stakeholders have been engaging with the European Commission through public consultations on copyright policy for the period 2004-2019.

Why bother? Because it gives you a fuzzy feeling to have contributed to academic research!? More seriously, we want to give voice to those whom we are studying. Your response will help us to test our theoretical assumptions and provide more relevant results.

Please do not hesitate to be in touch with any questions you may have. Should you prefer to speak to us in person on the topic in addition to (or instead of) the survey, please feel free to drop a line as well [a.vetulani-cegiel@amu.edu.pl or trisha.meyer@vub.be]. The survey will be accessible through 14 July.

BREAKING NEWS: EU Commission had serious doubts about Italian Communication Authority draft online copyright enforcement regulation

As just announced on the IPKat, today fellow Kat Alberto Bellan and I finally got access to the super-mysterious letter [available here] that the EU Commission sent to the Italian Communication Authority (AGCOM), shortly prior the adoption of its Regulation on online copyright enforcement [on which see here and here; unofficial English translation is available here]. 

As recalled here, by adopting its Regulation AGCOM set a very important precedent, for Italy and the EU alike. As regards the former, it is the first time in Italy that an administrative authority (as is AGCOM) has vested itself with powers (to grant injunctions) which traditionally have fallen within the competence of courts. As regards the latter, the Italian experiment has the potential to be looked at with either interest or fear by the other Member States, as well as informing debate around forthcoming review of the InfoSoc and Enforcement Directives.

Also in consideration of the "innovative" approach to be taken in the Regulation, the EU Commission was asked to provide comments on its first draft [see notification webpage here] focusing on compatibility with EU law, notably the Ecommerce Directive and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

Contrary to what AGCOM President Marcello Cardani declared a few hours ago during a hearing before the Italian Parliament, the EU Commission had many questions and serious doubts about the draft regulation that AGCOM was thinking of adopting. Amongst others, doubts related to compatibility with the fundamental right of defence.

Read it all on the IPKat and let us know what you think!