On May 24, 2019, STL Visiting Assistant Professor Danny Friedmann delivered the Jean Monnet Seminar at the University of Macau entitled ‘The Walled Gardens of Social Media in the Age of The Digital Single Market‘
The topic was about the new EU Directive (2019/790) on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market, which will have a huge impact on online content-sharing services, such as Facebook and YouTube, but also on copyright holders and users. Not only those stakeholders in the EU will be affected but those in other jurisdictions as well.
Professor Friedmann’s seminar focused in particular on the controversial Articles 13 (now Article 17) and 15. Article 17 abolishes the safe harbors and implements strict liability for the giant online content-sharing services. Article 15, compels online content-sharing services to pay for using excerpts from news articles with the goal of stimulating journalism.
Professor Friedmann also discussed the objective of the Directive to stimulate text and data mining (Big Data) by providing a mandatory exception for not-for-profit or public interest based organizations, such as universities, other research and cultural heritage institutions.
The new Copyright Directive, together with the earlier promulgated General Data Protection Regulation (2016/679), make it clear that the EU is trying to re-balance the information/data asymmetry between companies and users. Professor Friedmann also covered the EU’s sui generis protection of non-original databases, which makes it possible to exclude non-original databases from outside the EU from national treatment protection.
Professor Friedmann is an award-winning researcher and lecturer of Intellectual Property Law, especially trademark law, geographical indications and patent law.
Professor Paulo Canelas de Castro of the University of Macau & Professor Danny Friedmann
