Latvia
Latvia

Eurovision DSM contest

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Latvia
9

pts.

9

points

Latvia

On 23 March 2023, Latvia adopted amendments to the Copyright Act, which fully implemented the provisions of the DSM Directive into national law. The changes to the Copyright Act entered into force on 5 April 2023.

Procedure:

4 points

The government organized working groups on the implementation of the Directive, where civil society organizations were represented, before starting to draft the implementation law. Meetings took place approximately twice per month, and offered an opportunity for stakeholders to express their views. The Ministry of Culture submitted the draft law to public consultation. The national implementation law was approved by the Parliament, through an ordinary legislative procedure.

Article 17:

1 point

The Latvian implementation of Article 17 mostly restates the wording of the DSM Directive. The law contains only a general requirement not to limit legitimate uses, but lacks specific ex-ante safeguards for properly balancing user rights. The law does not contain any additional transparency provisions and it does not narrow down the definition of platforms affected by these rules.

Other:

3 points

Latvia implemented Article 5 by replacing its existing education and research exceptions, which still used language inspired by the Tunis Model Law on Copyright for Developing Countries from 1976, and therefore were not adequate for digital uses. The Latvian lawmaker was not, however, constrained by the minimum standards set by the new Directive. The national exception is broader in scope than the DSM exception, covering both digital and non-digital uses and going beyond formal education. The exception is not subject to remuneration nor to license availability, and applies to all categories of works or other subject matter to the extent necessary for the non-commercial purpose to be achieved. The national provision further clarifies the meaning of “illustration for teaching”, per recital 21 of the DSM Directive, and the meaning of “secured electronic environment”, as defined in recital 22. Furthermore, it goes a step further than the EU lawmaker in terms of cross-border uses, by creating a legal presumption that Latvia is the location to be considered when an educational institution is not established in the European Union or the European Economic Area, but operates in Latvia and implements a curriculum on the subject "Latvian Studies”. 

Article 14 was implemented by means of an exclusion from the scope of protection of copyright, although there was no need for it, since the national law did not offer protection to non-original reproductions.


The implementation of Article 15 includes all of the limits foreseen in the DSM Directive: scientific and academic publications are excluded from the definition of press publications; the right does not apply to private or non-commercial uses by individual users, to acts of hyperlinking nor to the use of individual words and very short extracts from press publications; the right cannot be invoked against uses authorized by a non-exclusive license nor against the use of public domain works; and the right is subject to all the exceptions and limitations to neighboring rights laid out in the national law (it should be noted, however, that these are narrower than the copyright exceptions, e.g. do not cover uses for purposes of caricature, pastiche and parody).

Bonus:

1 point

When drafting the new DSM-inspired education exception, the national lawmaker opted to extend the provision to also cover research purposes. Research uses are however subject to less conditions than the education exception: there is no requirement to conduct distance activities on secured electronic environments accessible only by certain persons.

The implementation of the DSM Directive led the national lawmaker to review its existing copyright exceptions for education and research, with very positive outcomes for access to knowledge communities. Instead of sticking to the minimum required by the DSM Directive, the national lawmaker chose to use the policy space available under the InfoSoc Directive, strengthening the rights of educators, learners and researchers in Latvia.


The implementation of Article 17 largely restates the text of the Directive and therefore does not contain any specific ex-ante safeguards for users rights. The press publisher's right is subject to all of the limits foreseen in the DSM Directive. Unoriginal reproductions are not protected under Latvian copyright law, still the lawmaker decided to implement Article 14.


Local partners: Our local partner has been SPECTRUM


For more information, please see our implementation tracking page for Latvia.

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