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6 April 20225 minute read

Transposition of the EU Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market into Luxembourg law

Following a late legislative process1, the EU Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market2 (the Directive) has been implemented into Luxembourg law by the adoption of bill n° 7847 on 30 March 2022.

This bill was introduced on 24 June 2021 by the Luxembourg Government following a public consultation from 10 February to 2 April which involved stakeholders such as Luxembourg collective management organisations, right holders, companies, cultural heritage institutions, university research centres and international associations.

Although Luxembourg, together with a few other Member States, expressed certain reservations pointing out that the Directive lacked legal clarity and did not strike the right balance between the protection of right holders and the interests of EU citizens and companies3, it has been rather faithfully implemented into Luxembourg law.

In order to modernise certain aspects of the legal framework for copyright and related rights by taking account of technological progress in digitalisation and new distribution channels for protected content such as digital platforms, the resulting law of 1 April 2022 (the Law) amends the following Luxembourg copyright-related laws:

  • the law of 18 April 2001 on copyright, related rights and databases as amended;
  • the law of 3 December 2015 on certain authorised uses of orphan works; and
  • the law of 25 April 2018 on the collective management of copyright and related rights and the multi-territorial licensing of rights in musical works for online use in the internal market.

In particular, the Law:

  • adapts the exceptions or limitations to copyright to the digital use of works. It also introduces new exceptions or limitations that apply to i) reproductions and extractions made by research organisations and cultural heritage institutions so as to carry out, for scientific research purposes, text and data mining4  of works to which they have lawful access, ii) reproductions and extractions of lawfully accessible works for the purposes of text and data mining under certain conditions, and iii) provision of non-commercial use of out-of-commerce works by cultural heritage institutions under certain conditions;
  • specifies that certain exceptions and limitations apply to database-related copyright;
  • establishes the right of authors to receive appropriate and proportionate remuneration when they license or transfer their exclusive rights for the exploitation of their works;
  • introduces neighbouring rights in favour of press publishers for their online publications;
  • provides for the enforceability of the rules on orphan works against the new neighbouring rights in favour of press publishers for their online publications;
  • extends the activities of collective management organisations to the use of out-of-commerce works and other subject matters by cultural heritage institutions under certain conditions; and
  • establishes a new liability legal framework for online content-sharing service providers by requiring online content-sharing platforms to obtain authorisation from right holders for the content uploaded on their website and to implement measures to avoid unauthorised uploads. In respect of this implementation of Article 17 of the Directive, the application of the Law will be driven by specific guidelines published by the European Commission.

More generally, this transposition harmonises certain aspects of copyright and related rights of the Luxembourg law with the other EU Member States’ copyright legislations.

The Law will enter into force on 9 April 2022.

Alongside the above-mentioned transposition, the Luxembourg copyright law has also been affected by the transposition of the EU Directive laying down rules on the exercise of copyright and related rights applicable to certain online transmissions by broadcasters and retransmissions of television and radio programmes5 following the adoption of bill n° 7846. This second law aims to align the legal framework for retransmission with the existing one for cable retransmission by extending the country of origin principle to certain online services provided by broadcasters, introducing new provisions on the retransmission of radio and television programmes by means other than cable and clarifying the rules governing the use of protected works or other protected subject matter by means of the technical process of direct injection.


1 The deadline set out in the EU Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market for implementation into national laws was 7 June 2021.
Directive (EU) 2019/790 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 April 2019 on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market and amending Directives 96/9/EC and 2001/29/EC.
3
 Council of the European Union, Joint statement by the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Poland, Italy and Finland, 15 April 2019, 7986/19 ADD 1 REV 2 (interinstitutional File: 2016/0280(COD)).
4 “Text and data mining” being defined by the Law as any automated analysis technique to analyse text and data in digital form to obtain information, including, but not limited to, patterns, trends and correlations.
5 Directive (EU) 2019/789 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 April 2019 laying down rules on the exercise of copyright and related rights applicable to certain online transmissions of broadcasting organisations and retransmissions of television and radio programmes, and amending Council Directive 93/83/EEC.

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