The European Union’s “home” for Copyright, was launched last week during EUIPO’s first ever Conference on Copyright in Alicante, Spain. High ranking officials agreed that though Europe has already established a solid Copyright infrastructure, the AI era brings new challenges, which reflect on multiple dimensions from rights protection and European competitiveness to European values, identity and rule of law.
By Eirini Polydorou
The European Union Intellectual Property Office launched on the 21st of November its Copyright Knowledge Center aiming at providing creators, citizens and EU policy makers with a single gateway for copyright knowledge in the EU, and addressing key challenges such as AI, the EU copyright infrastructure, and cultural diversity.
Users of the Centre’s page may find EUIPO's copyright-related databases, training materials, recent studies, copyright case-law, the latest data on copyright infringement and a new EU interactive copyright map that compiles information from all Member States on copyright legislation, competent authorities, and licensing schemes.
As part of the EUIPO's Strategic Plan 2030, the Centre aims to become a platform combining technical, legal and policy views, keeping a close dialogue with creators’ representatives, innovators and experts in order to improve on copyright transparency and accessibility across the Single Market, such as by developing a CopyrightView service to improve access to information on copyright status, authorship, and ownership of rights in Europe.
The Copyright Knowledge Centre was launched during the EUIPO first ever Conference on Copyright exploring questions such as: “Is copyright ready for the GenAI era? How can we build a copyright framework that supports creativity and innovation?”.
The high-level event was organised in close cooperation with the European Commission and brought together EU policy makers, creators’ representatives and artists, which seemed to agree that the EU has already established a solid Copyright infrastructure that needs to remain fit for purpose while facing the challenges imposed by the AI era.
Copyright supports Creators' Livelihoods and European Competitiveness
“Copyright is not only central to Europe’s cultural identity. It is also a powerful driver of economic growth. Copyright generates 7% of the EU’s GDP and supports more than 7 million jobs in the EU” said João Negrão, Executive Director of the EUIPO.
He highlighted that "We need a balanced approach in Europe, one that safeguards creators, while enabling innovation in the field of Artificial Intelligence". He concluded that "Copyright is not just about laws and rights. It is mainly about people. It’s about creativity. And it’s about the values that we all chose to uphold". However, he had prioritised competitiveness to copyright earlier in his speech, by saying that: "Our goal here is clear. To ensure that copyright continues to empower creativity, to drive economic growth, but also to support European competitiveness, our number one objective in the EU".
“Copyright is vital to protect, reward and stimulate creativity in Europe”, said in her video message Henna Virkkunen, Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy. “Copyright ensures that artists’, writers’, filmmakers’ and other creators works are respected and that they also get paid for their work" she continued.
The Executive Vice-President argued for a balanced approached between copyright and innovation, though not prioritising the one over the other. She concluded: "We should ensure that copyright law remains fit for purpose in the future by providing protection to rightholders, while supporting technological and cultural innovation [...] Innovation should not come at the expense of copyright and human creativity”.
Copyright to serve European Values and Rule of Law
Jakob Engel-Schmidt, Minister for Culture, Danish Presidency of the Council of the European Union had his AI-generated look-alike say to “blindly trust tech-giants” and demonstrate in a creative and illustrative approach, the deep fakes risks as one of the many concerns of generative AI. “Let’s join forces in order to secure that AI serves for good, and not as a means of undermining our values and our rights” he concluded.
“Let us seize this moment, let us support this initiative, and let us continue working together to ensure that Europe remains a champion of creativity, innovation and rule of law in the digital age,” said MEP Axel Voss (European People's Party , Germany).
MEP Axel Voss, is also Rapporteur for the ongoing file in the European Parliament, Copyright and generative artificial intelligence – opportunities and challenges, expected to be voted in the European Parliament's plenary in January 2026.
The conference was livestreamed and is available to view here.
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Images: Courtesy of EUIPO
