The Ministry of Education, Science and Sport contributed actively in the legislative process of adopting the compromise Proposal of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market in the Council. IPI acted as a professional legal adviser for the Ministry and helped preparing the drafts and proposals of documents that were then used as answers to the proposals of the Presidency of the Council. On the basis of IPI’s advising work, the Ministry formed its positions and advocated them in the suggestions and comments on the documents of the Council as well as in the interdministerial cooperation with the Ministry of Public Administration, the Ministry of Culture, and the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology as well as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding the official position of the Government of the Republic of Slovenia in the Council.

In accordance with its public mandate, the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport presented its position, especially regarding new exceptions to copyrights that are foreseen for text and data mining and for education, including the suggestions regarding the so-called out-of-commerce works stored in the collections of cultural heritage institutions. The Ministry strived for mandatory, clear and free exceptions that would, especially in the field of education and science, enable the users a wide use of copyright works for the purposes of the public interest exercised by these institutions. Amongst others, the Ministry added comments and suggestions on Article 11, which prescribes a new neighbouring right for press publishers, and strongly advocated the deletion of this provision from the Directive as this unnecessary right would bring many negative effects on the scientific and academic field. Also, the Ministry advocated the deletion of Article 13, which imposes new obligations to the platforms hosting user-generated content, believing that this provision would impose general filtering obligations undermining fundamental rights of the users of the Internet and that it is changing the established legal regimes and safeguards envisaged in the EU acts.

The official position of the Ministry is available here.