DSM Implementation Challenged
The German government has followed up its farcical maladministration of the old German publisher's right (which led to the publishers legal action against Google being halted by the ECJ) with a draft implementation of the EU directive that has left German publishers fuming. The draft adds exemptions for links, extracts and sections of press releases, and also (rather surprisingly) images below a certain size and sound extracts. In short it subverts the directive and adds considerable legal uncertainty to any licensing. The deadline for comments is this month. Unless there are substantial changes this DSM legislation in the largest European country could torpedo DSM across the EU.
With Brexit Day on January 31st the UK government suprised no one by confirming it 'had no plans' to implement the directive. Any such implementation move during the trade negotiations was always improbable. What the government will do was outlined in its response (published 7th January) to the Caincros review. Amonst other points this states that theyr are "Committed to take forward work on the recommendation to create codes of conduct to rebalance and redefine the relationships between news publishers and online platforms, in alignment with wider work on digital regulation."
See https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-response-to-the-cairncross-review
