The EIFL Draft Law on Copyright is a practical guide to assist librarians, as well as their legal advisors and policy-makers, when national laws are being updated. It contains provisions that support access to knowledge and the public interest mission of libraries.

Since the first edition in 2009, the text has twice been updated to reflect legislative developments, current thinking on copyright policy, and library services enabled by new technologies.

The 2016 edition contains a coherent set of definitions and exceptions and limitations to copyright for libraries and their users (the 2016 edition remains compatible with the 2019 European Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market). It applies fully to the digital environment, has important provisions for digital preservation, inter-library document supply, persons with disabilities, orphan works, translations, and text and data mining. It also includes a flexible exception increasingly recognized by policy makers as necessary to 'future proof' the law for technological advances. Each exception and limitation is accompanied by a short explanatory note that describes the policy goal of the provision and examples of its effect.

In 2020, we started to gather examples of provisions in national laws that permit the activities described in the exceptions available here.