17 November 2025
The Case for a EU Digital Knowledge Act
The European educational, research and cultural heritage institutions face significant barriers to transition their practices into the digital environment. Despite playing a fundamental role in supporting the exercise of rights such as education, scientific freedom, and participation in cultural life, these institutions are peripheral to the EU’s digital legislative agenda. The proposal for a Digital Knowledge Act is a response to this regulatory blind spot. Continue reading >>
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17 November 2025
Lawful Access as a Gatekeeper for TDM in the EU
Text and Data Mining (TDM) has become indispensable across disciplines: from medicine, where mining scientific articles can reveal patterns for new drug discoveries, to the humanities, where algorithms explore centuries of literature at once. The EU legislator embedded mandatory TDM exceptions into its Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive. Chief requirement is that TDM can only be carried out on works to which researchers have “lawful access”. The concept of lawfulness, however, is anything but clear under EU copyright law. Continue reading >>
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14 November 2025
News, Information, and Knowledge
The EU adopted the press publishers’ right to strengthen the bargaining position of press publishers towards online intermediaries. As an intellectual property right, it gives publishers control over information flows and, by its nature, interferes with freedom of expression. Researchers, however, have an interest in being able to share and reflect upon matters of public interest brought forward by the press in online fora. As such, this post considers the press publishers’ right’s potential to curtail European researchers’ activities. Continue reading >>
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13 November 2025
Unlocking Potential
EU copyright law’s teaching exceptions do not deserve a perfect grade. The law unduly privileges classical teaching practices by traditional educational institutions over more informal ways of teaching, it grants too much power to publishers, and it allows for differences in transposition, which hinder cross-border teaching projects and negatively impact the common market. Each of these elements should change. Continue reading >>
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12 November 2025
Beyond Copyright
Open Access is seen as a terrific opportunity for researchers to spread knowledge at unprecedented speed and increase society’s wider participation in cultural life. In contrast, traditional publishing models, with their rigid market dynamics, are aimed at rewarding rightsholders but feature visible contractual asymmetries that put researchers’ freedoms at stake, an imbalance that Second Publication Rights aim to redress. Continue reading >>
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12 November 2025
Reconciling EU Copyright Protection With the Right to Research
Considering the rapid evolution of digital technology and changing research approaches, it is doubtful whether the current EU copyright acquis offers sufficient support for research that requires access to protected knowledge resources. To this day, EU copyright law misses a general research clause that would allow researchers to do their job in the current information society and contribute to the improvement of societal conditions – regardless of constantly changing technologies and access routes to knowledge resources. Continue reading >>
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07 November 2025
We Must Never Cease to Hope in the Possibility of a Future
Five Questions to Michael O'Flaherty Continue reading >>
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27 October 2025
Using the DSA to Study Platforms
The EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) established a host of new transparency mandates for online platforms. One of the simplest yet most critical allows researchers to collect or “scrape” data that is publicly available on platforms’ websites or apps. This post examines who can take advantage of the DSA’s protections. Continue reading >>
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21 October 2025
Rainbow Europe or Rainbow Washing?
A growing number of EU Member States have proposed or introduced legislation that directly targets LGBTIQA+ individuals. What a decade ago seemed to be Hungary’s isolated case is today a growing trend across the Union. Against this backdrop, the European Commission just published its new LGBTIQ+ Equality Strategy (2026-2030). In my view, however, this initiative represents a downgraded commitment of the European Commission towards the protection of Queer individuals. Continue reading >>
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31 August 2025