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The School of Rock(ing) EU Copyright 2017

By EDRi · August 17, 2017

What is the School of Rock(ing) Copyright?

The European Union (EU) is currently reforming its copyright legislation. Such reforms are rare, their effects intended to last for many years, with their consequences having a direct impact on the lives of all individuals.

In cooperation with Communia and Wikimedia, EDRi is organising a series of workshops on the European copyright reform, its challenges, dangers and opportunities. This 2017 series is a continuation of our very first School of Rock(ing) Copyright in Warsaw in 2015.

How do you feel having all your memes, blogposts, private videos filtered by a European censorship machine? How do you feel when you cannot make copies of your own cultural content? How does copyright affect freedom of expression in our daily lives? And most importantly, what can we do together in order to change this situation where multinationals speak on behalf of authors and limit our fundamental rights? Our series of events will address these questions…

The objective is to form a copyfighter A-Team to push users rights to the top of the agenda of EU policy-making. We’ll discuss jointly the main concerns, and what can we do in order to bring such issues into the public debate, to allow us to better reach individuals and politicians, both at the European and the national levels.

The workshop is available for up to 20 participants and the working language is English. There is funding available for transport and accommodation.

The goals of the School of Rock(ing) EU Copyright are to:

  • inform the participants on the current state of play of the EU copyright reform;
  • provide the tools that can be used to campaign on national level;
  • deepen the understanding of copyright activists of the EU legal and decision-making frameworks;
  • inform participants on how it is possible to influence decision-making in the EU;
  • create networks (and develop existing ones) of civil society activists to work together on common goals in order to have a stronger voice and avoid duplicate efforts.

Our workshops

Slovenia, Ljubljana
Dates: 22-23 September
Partner: Inštitut za intelektualno lastnino
Applications: Please fill in the application form available here (odt) or here (pdf), and send it to with subject “SORC”.
Deadline for applications: 4 September 2017
Number of funded places: 15-20
Info in local language

Hungary, Budapest
Dates: 6-7 October
Partner: Center for Independent Journalism
Applications: Please use the Google doc here.
Deadline for applications: 15 September 2017
Info in local language: Go here to access the information (HU)
Number of funded places: 15-20

Portugal, Lisbon
Dates: 20-21 October
Partner: Direitos Digitais
Applications and information: Inscrições abertas! – The School of Rock(ing) EU Copyright
Deadline for applicatiosn: 8 September 2017
Number of funded places: 15-20

Want to know more?

Ask our partners directly about the specific workshops in each country. For general information on the School of Rock(ing) Copyright (potential future partners, media, etc.), you can write to (with “SORC” in the subject line).

Partners