Hi everyone,
The Swedish parliament just voted (a few hours ago) on the final implementation of the EU Copyright Directive in Swedish law. The vote passed, which of course embeds all the issues with the EU Copyright Directive in Swedish law, but also brings the good parts.
I'd especially like to mention one thing that I'm very happy that we succeeded with in our advocacy: to broaden the so called Article 14, often phrased as the the 'safeguarding of the public domain', in the Swedish implementation.
The EU Copyright Directive states that no new copyright or related right can be applied on digitizations / digital reproductions of 'works of visual art' – a practice which has been fairly common in Sweden. Based on our feedback and advocacy towards Swedish government and parliament, it was however broadened to 'works of art', which certainly includes everything in the grey zone between what could be defined as work of art and work of visual art respectively (such as applied arts, handicraft, probably also manuscripts etc.).
In Sweden, the creation of the kinds of art works just mentioned have historically been dominated by women – which also means that we have a much stronger legal framework for making women's art visible online in Sweden.
This will mean a whole new opportunity for working with the digitization of the Swedish cultural heritage.
Happy to reply to any questions on this (or anything else about the Swedish implementation, of course).
Best,
Eric Luth
Projektledare engagemang och påverkan | Project Manager, Involvement and Advocacy
Wikimedia Sverige
+46 (0) 765 55 50 95
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