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8 Network meeting on copyright in Athens in November

As you can see from the photos, this network meeting was both work and play. It was hosted by our member Patakis and held at their office. It was attended by representatives from 7 members. The presentations of the keynote speakers and from Cornelsen, Prosveta, Zvaigzne and Veritas can be viewed here.

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As in Belgrade in 2015, Prof. Dusan V. Popovic from the university of Belgrade gave an excellent overview about the EU and individual countries. Jens Bammel gave an overview about the Marrakesh Treaty and also talked about competition versus collaboration. It was again pointed that educational publishers in each country have to join forces and lobby their governments. In many cases, there is little awareness about the effects of certain decisions for educational publishers. However, Prof Popovic also suggested some measurements the EEPG can take as an organization and offered to help formulate letters and statements that the EEPG can publish both on the website but also as replies to publications by the EU.

Here are some of his suggestions that we will discuss at the management board meeting but that might also be useful for you as individual members.
  • EEPG could start submitting official statements to the European Commission during the public consultations period prior to the adoption of any new copyright legislation. Such statements need not necessary be exhaustive. Statements should be drafted by a lawyer. All public comments are posted on the website of the Commission.
  • Members of EEPG should also post such statements on their website (original text or even better translation into national language).
  • EEPG members should open a section on their websites dedicated to copyright issues. They should explain in simple words (to non-experts) why copyright is important to their business. Also, the above mentioned EEPG statements could be posted there.
  • EEPG members should try to organize seminars/workshops regarding copyright issues in order to sensitise stakeholders. They could try to invite government and parliament officials to such events, as well as the media. Speakers at the events should come not only from the publishing sector, but also from academia (copyright law professors) and users (school teachers). Instead of such separate events, EEPG could always try to make use of the existing meetings, by inviting local stakeholders to their regular network meetings (as Elena Pataki did in Athens).


As copyright issues have been very much in focus this past year, here are some recent interesting articles from Australia, and Malta.

And you might also be interested in this statement: FEP's reaction to the CJEU judgement in the case C-174/15 and in this article concerning e.books.