This page is maintained by @Eric Luth

🕘 Timeline

• 30-11-2022: The implementation of the DSM directive in Sweden was approved in the parliament. The changes to the Swedish Copyright Act will take effect on 1 January 2023.

  • Act (1960:729) on Copyright in Literary and Artistic Works (updated after the implementation of the DSM directive)

• Report of the Committee on Economic Affairs 2022/23:NU6

  2022_23_NU6_20221124143954_Publicering.pdf

• October 2021: The Ministry of Legal Affairs publishes its ministry memorandum, with proposals on how to implement the articles in Swedish legislation. Wikimedia Sverige, Creative Commons, Swedish Consumers and a series of other NGOs are invited to provide feedback until 13 December. Votes are tabled in parliament for early summer.

  • A group consisting of Digisam, Wikimedia Sverige, Swedish Library Association, National Library, a few universities and colleges and a few NGOs have started to meet to exchange views.
  • Analyses of the proposals, including legal, are made.
  • The memorandum proposes to save large changes in exceptions and limitations until after the DSM is implemented.

• 20-01-2021: An email yesterday from the Ministry states that they will likely not be done before the end of February. They have scheduled the vote in the parliament for September or October.

• June 2019: The unit of the Ministry of Legal Affairs responsible for drafting an implementation proposal (the Unit for Immaterial Rights and Transportation) created a consultative group, where the Swedish consumers, Swedish library association, Wikimedia Sverige, Digisam and CC Sweden all are parts.

  • This consultative group has met recurrently throughout 2019, and until the Covid-19 pandemic forced all meetings to be cancelled or go digital.

• November 2019 - June 2020: The responsible unit has broken down the directive into small subgroups, with a consultative meeting and a written response for each subgroup. The unit defined a preferred deadline for each article (this is date until when the Ministry would like to receive comments in order to duly integrate them into their process, but until the department promemoria is finalized, the ministry is forced by law to take all input and comments into consideration):

  For each step of the process, the Ministry of Legal Affairs has written a brief with some early interpretations and comments. These documents are however not official positions from the government, but rather interpretations from some of the top officials, in order to make it easier to submit written responses.

  • November 2019: Deadline for first round of comments on Article 17. Due to it's complexity, the ministry is scheduling another meeting only focusing on Article 17.
    • Wikimedia Sverige's input on Article 17, submitted to the Ministry of Legal Affairs
  • December 2019: Deadline for comments on Articles 18-23.
  • February 2020: Deadline for comments on Articles 13-16.
    • Wikimedia Sverige's input on Articles 13-16, submitted to the Ministry of Legal Affairs
  • Mid-March 2020: Deadline for comments on Articles 3-12.
    • Wikimedia Sverige focused mainly on Freedom of Panorama, whereas for example the Swedish Library Association provided lengthy input on article 4 and 5.
    • Link: https://se.wikimedia.org/wiki/Synpunkter_till_justitiedepartementet_om_artikel_3-12
  • May-June 2020: the ministry has opened up a second round of consultations on Article 17, due to its complexity. The aim was to include written recommendations from the European commission for this consultation, but because of the time delays in the stakeholder dialogues on European level, the Ministry of Legal Affairs went forward with a new consultation process anyway. Deadline for written replies is 22 June.

• The ministry also asked for input on the EUIPO platform for out of commerce works, to which the Swedish Library Association and WMSE provided input. Wikimedia Sverige's input is available here.

• Projected timeline:

  • Summer 2020: the Ministry of Legal Affairs will provide a draft legislative text (pushed forward towards late summer or early fall, due to the delays in the stakeholder dialogues on European level, and the Covid-19 pandemic. The consultative process will however need to start by then if Sweden is to have time to implement the legislation before the deadline.
  • Summer 2020: the consultative process will start
  • Spring 2021: the proposed implementation law will be tabled in the parliament

• The timeline has not been held: the Ministry of Legal Affairs waits for the final guidelines on art. 17 from the Commission. Probably the next round won't start until 2021. This also means that likely the deadline set in the directive won't be held.

📑 National implementation overview

Sweden implementation structure

🔎Key resources