COMMUNIA and Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte are pleased to announce the detailed programme of the Filtered Futures conference.
Taking place on Monday, September 19th, in Berlin at Robert Bosch Stiftung, Filtered Futures will discuss the consequences of the CJEU ruling on Article 17 of the Copyright Directive for fundamental rights.Â
Registration for in-person attendance is now closed. It will be possible to follow the live stream of the conference here.
After the closing of the conference, COMMUNIA will be hosting a networking reception from 17:00 to 19:00.
Programme
08:45-09:15 Door Opening
09:15-09:45 Welcome and Opening Remarks by Susanne Zels (Robert Bosch Stiftung) and Felix Reda (GFF – Society for Civil Rights)
10:00-12:00 Session 1: Fragmentation or Harmonization? The impact of the Judgment on National Implementations – While the CJEU has rejected the Polish challenge to Article 17, the Court has formulated a number of requirements for ensuring that national implementations are fundamental rights compliant. In this light, the opening session of the conference will examine the consequences of the judgment for Member States’ implementations of Article 17. What are the requirements established by the judgment for national legislators? How do the existing national implementations measure up to these requirements? Which implementation strategies are available to those member states that still have to implement the directive? And have platforms already reacted to the existing national implementations?
- Bernd Justin Jütte (​​University College Dublin): Imperatives for implementing Article 17: the importance of national implementations.
- Finn Hümmer (Stockholm University): Implications from C-401/19 for national transpositions under the light of freedom of expression.
- Jasmin Brieske (Goethe University Frankfurt am Main): The impact of the enactment of the German OCSSP Act on selected online platforms.
- Christina Angelopoulos (University of Cambridge): The national implementations of Article 17 of the EU’s CDSM Directive.
- Moderator: Paul Keller (COMMUNIA)
12:00-13:30 Lunch Break
13:30-15:00 Session 2: Balancing Enforcement & Usage Rights in Practice – Protecting legal forms of expression from automated blocking decisions by online platforms is not just a task for the national legislators when transposing Article 17, but also a question of implementation of those provisions by regulators and courts. Who is going to ensure that filtering systems will leave legal uses of copyright-protected works unaffected in practice? How can the balance of competing rights be enforced in cross-border situations? How does the ban on general monitoring obligations as interpreted by the CJEU constrain the content moderation obligations of platforms – in the context of Article 17, but also when applied to other types of illegal content? Will the Digital Services Act improve users’ access to effective remedies against over-blocking?
- Natasha Mangal (University of Strasbourg): Regulating Creativity Online: Proposal for an EU Copyright Institution.
- Daniel Holznagel (academia): Don’t touch the ceiling – Why we should not narrow the EU no-monitoring-obligation-rules.
- Martin Husovec (London School of Economics): Mandatory Filtering Does Not Always Violate Freedom of Expression: Lessons from Poland v Council and European Parliament.
- Moderator: Felix Reda (GFF – Society for Civil Rights)
15:00-15:30 Coffee Break
15:30-17:00 Session 3: Beyond the Judgment: The Future of Freedom of Expression – In its ruling, the CJEU was of the view that the procedural safeguards present in Article 17 protect the ‘essence’ of the right to freedom of expression of the users of online sharing platforms. But many argue that filtering mechanisms can still pose real risks to fundamental freedoms and to the flourishing of parodies, caricatures and pastiche. Is the CJEU classical approach to proportionality balancing apt in a filtered online environment? Do we need a new conceptualisation of the ‘essence’ of fundamental rights? Can the case law from the CJEU and the European Court of Human Rights on freedom of expression offer avenues to better the future of parodic uses? Finally, are we moving towards a European Right to Remix?
- Kevin O’Sullivan (Dublin City University): A new conceptualisation of the ‘essence’ of fundamental rights.
- Sabine Jacques (University of East Anglia, Law School): A two-tier system for freedom of expression.
- Till Kreutzer (iRights.Law): Towards a European Right to Remix (?) – On the new Pastiche exception in the German Copyright Act.
- Moderator: Teresa Nobre (COMMUNIA)
17:00-19:00 Reception hosted by COMMUNIA
*All times are indicated in CEST.
