Stakeholder dialogue on copyright

Article 17 of the Directive on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market (EU 2019/790) requires the European Commission to organise a stakeholder dialogue to discuss best practices for cooperation between online content-sharing service providers and rightholders. 

Objective of the stakeholder dialogue 

The objective of the dialogue was to hear stakeholders’ views and to discuss possible practical solutions for the application of Article 17. This included a discussion on topics such as actions online content-sharing service providers can take with regard to unauthorised content uploaded on their platforms.

Any action should take into account the interests of all relevant parties and safeguards for users. The outcome of the discussions fed into the preparation of the guidance that the Commission will issue pursuant to the Directive. 

The stakeholder dialogue meetings 

The selected participants engaged in a series of meetings in Brussels. They were selected based on the criteria indicated in the call for expression of interest, which ensured that relevant stakeholders impacted by Article 17 were properly represented. This included representatives of rightholders, online content-sharing service providers, consumers, users and fundamental rights organisations. 

Representatives of EU Member States were also invited to participate in the meetings. 

Besides the regular participants, some further stakeholders were invited on an ad hoc basis to share their particular expertise or to participate in the discussions on the specific issues. 

The Commission remains available to engage in discussions and receive and publish position papers by stakeholders not selected for the physical meetings.  

The meetings 

The stakeholder dialogue meetings were organised in Brussels throughout autumn 2019 and the first quarter of 2020. All meetings were webstreamed. The recording of the meeting as well as the presentations are available at dedicated meeting pages below.  

1. First meeting – 15 October 2019 
2. Second meeting – 05 November 2019 
3. Third meeting – 25 November 2019 
4. Fourth meeting – 16 December 2019 
5. Fifth meeting - 16 January 2020 
6. Sixth meeting - 10 February 2020 

To conclude the stakeholder dialogue process, the Commission seeks the views of the participants to the stakeholder dialogue on the Commission’s initial views on the guidance. See the dedicated page for further information.