STM NEWSROOM

Following the call for evidence on the ERA Act open between 6 August and 10 September 2025, the EU Commission released a summary of stakeholders’ responses. A fragmented copyright landscape, the lack of standardised metadata and interoperable data infrastructures, inequities arising from APCs, dominance of English in scientific publishing, reliance on commercial publishers and restrictive contractual practices…

The Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) shared that Simon Hutson has been appointed as Chief Executive Officer of CLA.  With over 20 years of experience across publishing, media and technology, including leadership roles at the BBC, Reuters and Cision, Hutson brings a powerful blend of commercial insight, strategic innovation and a deep commitment to creators and publishers. Read…

The European Commission has released a report examining how copyright law affects the ability of institutions — such as libraries, educational establishments, research organisations, and museums — to provide remote access to digital materials for education and research. The report highlights legal and practical challenges and explores potential avenues to improve the framework for conducting research remotely…

The French CSPLA has published the findings of a much-anticipated inquiry into a key legal question: Do European copyright laws apply to large AI models developed outside the EU? The report concludes that once AI models are marketed within the EU, European copyright law applies—regardless of where the servers are located or where training occurred. An…

The Code of Practice for General-Purpose AI models adopted this summer includes Measure 1.3 “Identify and comply with rights reservations when crawling the World Wide Web”. The EU Commission has now started a consultation (deadline 9 January 2026) on protocols that exist for expressing right reservations, which STM will respond to. The questionnaire includes several questions on the TDMRep…

As previously reported, the EU Commission is seeking the stakeholders’ views on potential changes at EU level on Secondary Publication Right and research exception from copyright. Because of the disappointing survey design, STM is drafting a critique letter, co-signed by other publishing organisations in Europe and globally, in addition to its survey responses. Thank you to all members…

The EU Commission is considering legislative changes to the research exception from copyright and the introduction of a EU-wide Secondary Publication Right (self-archiving, potentially with zero embargo and extending to the VoR). They are analysing potential economic effects of such measures on publishers, and are collecting views through a survey through 1 December. It is very…

The European Commission is gathering stakeholder feedback on the upcoming European Research Area (ERA) Act, expected for Q3 2026, through a questionnaire open until 5 January 2026. Questions related to OA mandates and rights retention strategies are included under the section ‘Free circulation of scientific knowledge’, including the option ‘the applicable legal frameworks should be reviewed to improve legal…

The work programme of the EU Commission provides an overview of all that the institution will be working on in the coming year. For example, the ERA Act is included under ‘New initiatives’. Besides what was inserted in the programme, it is also interesting to note that, despite the evaluation of the Copyright Directive of 2019 being planned for next year,…

The Australian government decided not to proceed with a text and data mining (TDM) exception to facilitate AI training. Such a recommendation was included in an interim report by the Productivity Commission over the summer, and may still be included in the final report due in December. The Copyright & AI Reference Group (CAIRG) has also been reactivated…