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https://www.techdirt.com/2023/07/05/top-eu-court-advisor-says-technical-standards-like-laws-should-not-be-locked-down-by-copyright/>
"One of the most pernicious ideas that copyright maximalism has spread is that
preventing people from freely accessing creative material is not just a good
thing to do, but should be the natural state of affairs. This has made
questioning whether copyright is really the best way to support artists and
promote creativity hard. Against that background, there’s an interesting
opinion from one of the top EU court’s special advisers, known as advocates
general, suggesting a situation in which copyright definitely should not be
applied. The Court of Justice of the European Union’s press release explains
the background:
Public.Resource.Org Inc. and Right to Know CLG are two non-profit
organisations whose focus is to make the law freely accessible to all
citizens. The organisations had challenged before the [EU] General Court a
Commission Decision refusing to grant them access to four harmonised
technical standards (HTS) adopted by the European Committee for
Standardisation (CEN) with respect to the safety of toys in particular. As
their challenge was unsuccessful, they appealed the General Court judgment
before the Court of Justice.
In today’s Opinion, Advocate General Laila Medina looks into the question
whether the rule of law as well as the principle of transparency and the
right of access to documents of EU institutions require that HTS are freely
available without charge.
The conclusion reached by Advocate General Laila Medina is straightforward:
for the purposes of EU law in general and for the access to EU law in
particular, and, given HTS indispensable role in the implementation of EU
secondary legislation and their legal effects, they should, in principle,
not benefit from copyright protection.
Moreover:
even if HTS could be protected by copyright, free access to the law has
priority over copyright protection.
The basic idea is simple: people can’t be expected to follow a law (or
technical standard) if they don’t have ready access to it. Copyright is a
barrier to access, and therefore should not be allowed for harmonized technical
standards (HTS), just as it is not permitted for EU laws. And even if for some
reason HTS were subject to copyright, free access must be granted anyway,
blunting its negative impact."
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
