2014 was a doubly important year for the Conseil supérieur de la propriété littéraire et artistique.
On the one hand, the changes in its composition, prepared by extensive consultations in 2013 and which tend to increase its representativeness as well as its effectiveness, have come into force.
On the other hand, the past year has been marked by sustained activity, since four reports, drafted by qualified personalities members of the Council, were submitted to the Minister of Culture after being discussed in plenary.
The first in chronological order, concerning the transposition of the Directive of 25 October 2012 on orphan works, which was to be carried out before 29 October 2014, allowed the government to integrate thetransposition bill annexed to the report in what has become law no. 2015-195 of 20 February 2015 on various measures of adaptation to the law of the European Union in the fields of literary and artistic property and cultural heritage.
The other three reports have in different forms very close links with the clearly stated intention of the European Commission at the end of 2012 and very vigorously taken up by the new Commission to revise Directive 2001/29 of 22 May 2001 on harmonization of copyright and related rights in the Information Society. On the one hand, reports on transformative works and data mining (“text and data mining”) Specifically examine the practices and needs invoked to justify the expansion of certain exceptions or the creation of new exceptions to the exclusive right to conclude that it would not be appropriate to do so in the immediate future. On the other hand, the report presented in November 2014 on the possible revision of Directive 2001/29 provides the Minister with a well-informed argument for addressing the upcoming European negotiations with a view to not sacrificing copyright on the altar of the economy digital, but without rejecting developments whose justification could be established. It should be noted that, in the spirit of full transparency, this report, like others previously, was submitted with the sometimes critical comments made by certain member organizations of the Council on this report.
All these documents are naturally available on a completely renovated site.
As these lines are written, there is every reason to believe that the Commission will maintain a high level of activity in 2015, either by deepening some of the avenues opened in 2014 or by exploring new territories.
Pierre-François RACINE