Copyright law of the European Union

Ljubljana – The European audiovisual industry needs modern legislation that will reflect the rapid development of digital technologies on the market, agreed participants of a regional conference on copyright. They called for the implementation of the EU copyright directive on the single digital market and a mechanism that would protect artists.

Bulgarian writer Georgi Bardarov's novel Absolvo Te, which means "forgiveness of all sins", is among the winners of the European Union Prize for Literature (EUPL). The novel was published in 2020. It intertwines the threads of several conflicts that still smoulder today.

EU countries have approved copyright reforms that have been strongly supported by publishers. However, American technology giants and Internet freedom activists have opposed these changes, arguing that they can harm the free sharing of information. The revision of the directive has led to a strong lobbying on both sides.

Article 13 of the EU Copyright Directive foces companies on the internet to introduce new stringent automatic checks through which content must pass before it is posted on platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube.

The European Parliament will vote today on the Copyright Directive, which, in an effort to protect copyright, risks changing the way social networks, content sharing platforms and search engines work, reports Dnevnik. 

The brave new path to a gatekeeper-manned, non-open internet the EU recently cut with its plainly atrocious new copyright directive was, were you to believe the general media coverage, cheered on by EU artists as a blow to Google and a boon to art because... well, nobody can actually explain that last part.

The approval by the European Parliament of the much-discussed European Copyright Directive according to which major internet companies will have to pay to content providers for copyright and related rights, is the right decision.