Global Network on Flexible Copyright Limitations and Exceptions: Model Flexible Copyright Exception

The enclosed model flexible copyright exception and appendices were drafted through a year-long consultative process among a group of copyright scholars from around the world, assembled as the Global Network on Flexible Copyright Limitations and Exceptions (L&E Network).

The purpose of the L&E Network was to generate policy options and expert guidance on the protection of user rights provided by national copyright laws.

To promote and enable new technologies and uses over time, there is an increasing recognition that copyright laws should include, in addition to specific limitations and exceptions, a flexible balancing test that can apply to new uses on a case by case basis. This theme was sounded in the Washington Declaration on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest, drafted at the inaugural Global Congress at American University in August 2011, which called for “discussion of employing ‘open-ended’ limitations in national copyright legislation, in addition to specific exceptions.” The L&E Network was created to answer that call.