The European Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee has today adopted in a majority vote an own initiative report on authors’ rights that including provisions to strengthen authors’ contractual position while opening up some exceptions. The controversial report initiated by the European Greens MEP Reda  is a response to current work led by the European Commission to reform copyright/authors’ rights legislation (on the implementation of the “Infosoc directive” 2001/29) in the EU . It has led to heated debates inside the European Parliament and political groups over the possibility to relax current legislation to enable users to access protected works more extensively in the…

Following today’s vote on the Trade Secrets Directive in the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament, the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the European Newspaper Publishers’ Association (ENPA) and the European Magazine Media Association (EMMA) reiterate their call for a clear and strong protection of the right to media freedom and information. The European Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) today introduced provisions to counter potential restrictions on journalists’ capacity to report on and investigate business activities that are in the public interest. The text voted today rightly specifies that the Directive shall not affect…

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) have today launched a report on the safety of journalists in Ukraine in 2014 during a conflict reporting conference organized by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in Vienna. The report was prepared by IFJ/EFJ affiliates, the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU), the Independent Media Trade Union of Ukraine (IMTUU) and the Russian Union of Journalists (RUJ) in a joint IFJ/EFJ initiative to document the lessons and experience of the Ukraine conflict for journalists. The handbook details the range and scope of restrictions…