Response of EUA to the European Commission’s Communication on copyright
The European University Association (EUA) welcomes the European Commission’s (EC) 9 December Communication outlining its intentions to move towards a modern, more European copyright framework. The reform of the current legislation is urgently needed as students, researchers, educators and innovators are hampered by outdated copyright rules that have not evolved with new working methods, the digitalisation and the worldwide web, and the increasing international and global collaboration in the higher education sector.
EUA especially welcomes the EC’s ambition to strive for more harmonisation and to provide exceptions for text and data mining and teaching. Providing students, researchers, educators and innovators with more legal certainty on the rights and obligations in use of the materials is an important step forwards. In addition, this can result in competitive advantages with respect to their peers in other jurisdictions. The EC’s intentions are hence important both for increased collaboration and exchange of knowledge.
