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Slovenia passed changes to the Copyright and Related Rights Act (ZASP) and Collective Management of Copyright and Related Rights Act (ZKUASP) in an urgent legislative procedure on 29.9.2022. The DSM Directive was fully implemented when the acts entered into force on 22.10.2022.
Procedure:
The Slovenian government (Ministry of Commerce) organized multiple public consultations on proposed draft laws implementing the Directive. Before issuing the first public draft law, the Ministry issued a public call for opinions regarding the implementation of the DSM Directive (March 2020). Draft laws were later published in May 2021, February 2022, July 2022 and August 2022, with additional only inter-ministerial consultation procedure of a draft law in June 2022. The final draft law from August 2022 went through an urgent legislative procedure, which the Ministry of Commerce justified as a necessary one because of the sanctions threatened by the EU Commission for the implementation delay. This annulled any meaningful public consultation Slovenia had beforehand. The time pressure was used to minimize the role of public consultation, ignore positions of public interest stakeholders and include and adopt numerous provisions that had nothing to do with the DSM directive, especially in favour of rightholders from the audiovisual sector. The Act was passed at the end of September.
Article 17:
The Slovenian 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, and does not provide a special regime for open licenses. The law does not contain any additional transparency provisions and it does not narrow down the definition of platforms affected by these rules. The provisions regarding the complaint mechanism do not expressly regulate a redress mechanism. Neither is the possibility of redress expressly mentioned in regards to a judicial or out-of-court settlement of disputes. The law uses the expression “author” whereas the directive uses “rightsholder.” Additionally, when the author transfers the right of communication to the public in the context of online content sharing, they are entitled to adequate remuneration from the online content-sharing service provider. The authors cannot waive the right to remuneration.
Other:
The new exception for use of works in digital and cross-border teaching activities is subject to remuneration, to quantity limitations, and, for certain types of materials (those primarily intended for use in education as well as graphic editions of musical works), to license availability. Additionally, the scope of the existing Slovenian exception for live teaching was narrowed down without any requirement to do so in the implemented directive. Unoriginal reproductions are not protected under Slovenian copyright law, so Article 14 did not need additional implementation measures. The implementation of Article 15 includes all 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 the use of individual words and very short extracts, to private or non-commercial uses by individual users, nor to acts of hyperlinking; 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 the exceptions and limitations to copyright laid out in the national law. Blogs are not expressly excluded from the press publishers’ right, despite continuous efforts and suggestions, forwarded during the public consultations by public interest stakeholders to make such a clarification.
Bonus:
The text and data mining exception includes the right to digitize analogue content for the purposes of text and data mining and the right to access content remotely for the purposes of text and data mining. The text and data mining exception also includes the right to share and make available to the public the results of the mining under additional conditions of a four step test that are specified in the article. Rightsholders have to remove technological protection measures and provide access to legally accessible works in 72 hours, though there is no sanction provided for failure to do so. Furthermore, a new general exception for scientific research was introduced in the law.
The implementation of the DSM Directive in Slovenia took effect on 22.10.2022. The Slovenian Government organized an active, long lasting public consultation process, consisting of multiple published draft laws and calls for public feedback. Despite that, the final draft law was subject to an urgent legislative procedure, which the Ministry of Commerce justified as a necessary one because of the sanctions threatened by the EU Commission for the implementation delay. This annulled any meaningful public consultation Slovenia had beforehand, as civil society and public interest stakeholders’ proposals were largely ignored. On the positive side, following the implementation, the Ministry called for a further public consultation on the future of copyright.
The implementation of the DSM Directive in Slovenia led the national lawmaker to review its existing copyright exceptions. This revision had positive results for research activities, with the introduction of a new general exception for scientific research, alongside a text and data mining exception with sharing rights and with the option to digitize analog materials. For education, however, the scope of the existing exception for live teaching was narrowed down and the new exception for digital and cross-border teaching activities is subject to remuneration (this represents a break with the Slovenian tradition of non-remunerated exceptions), to quantity limitations, and, for certain types of materials to license availability.
The implementation of Article 17 largely restates the text of the Directive. As such it does not narrow down the definition of platforms affected by these rules, does not contain any specific ex-ante safeguards for users rights or additional transparency provisions.
The press publisher's right is subject to all of the limits foreseen in the DSM Directive. Unoriginal reproductions are not protected under Slovenian copyright law, so Article 14 did not need additional implementation measures.
Local partners: Our local partner has been Intellectual Property Institute and Danes Je Nov Dan
For more information please see our implementation tracking page for Slovenia.
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