A Statement on Digital Services Act

Educational and Scientific Digital Infrastructure should be exempted from the Digital Services Act

European Research organisations, libraries, repositories and university networks call for the exclusion of not-for-profit repositories, digital archives and libraries from the obligations of the Digital Services Act (DSA).

Not-for-profit scientific and educational repositories, digital archives, and libraries that allow for the upload of content by students, researchers, and third parties, are likely to fall in the scope of the current version of the Digital Services Act. This is in spite of the fact that the legislation is devised for and targeted at commercial platforms. As a result, not-for-profit educational and scientific digital infrastructures would incur additional administrative and financial costs.

In addition, the signatories consider that the inclusion of not-for-profit scientific and educational repositories, digital archives, and libraries in the DSA scope would create inconsistency in EU legislation. ‘Not-for-profit educational and scientific repositories’ are already excluded from the scope of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (Article 2(6)). The signatories consider that legal coherence between the DSA and Digital Single Market Directive should be ensured to avoid confusion within our institutions.

The negotiation position adopted by the European Parliament provides a procedure to exempt not-for-profit repositories from the obligations imposed on online platforms. However, it is overly long and complex and will result in administrative and financial burdens that not-for-profit scientific and educational repositories, digital archives, and libraries will not be able to meet.

For these reasons, the undersigned organisations, including AURORA,  which represent most universities, research performing organisations, research funding organisations, research libraries and repositories in Europe, call for the exclusion of not-for-profit repositories, digital archives, and libraries from the obligations of the Digital Services Act.

20220404_Statement_DSA_Final