Product safety and liability
When software becomes part of the product, liability moves with it. Three frameworks govern the question in the EU: the general product safety regulation, the machinery regulation for machines with control systems, and the revised product liability directive, which expressly counts software as a product.
NovaCopilot · ExploreWorld Legal
European and Nordic law as verifiable data, with source, reading date and checksum on every row.
- Publisher
- NovaCopilot, ExploreWorld Legal
- Corpus version
- legal-2026-10-01
- Read at
- 2026-08-31
- Freshness
- 86/100
Before the market
- The general product safety regulation covers every consumer product without its own sectoral rules, including software updates that affect safety.
- The machinery regulation takes over for machinery. Safety software and self-learning control systems are singled out and in some cases require third-party assessment.
- A high-risk AI system built into machinery is assessed in the same procedure, not in a parallel track.
After the market
- The revised product liability directive treats software, AI systems included, as a product. Strict liability applies to damage caused by a defect.
- A product can become defective later where the manufacturer retains control over updates and fails to act.
- Evidential relief applies where the technology is too complex for the injured party to unpick, whoever holds the documentation can be ordered to disclose it.
What this means for documentation
- Traceability over time is the core: which version was live, what the decision rested on, when it was updated.
- Every node here carries a reading date, a hash and a corpus version, so a decision can be shown against exactly the text that applied then.
- The change log is the chronological side of the same thing and can be linked row by row.
The NovaCopilot models
The decision model
In: A role, a legal act and the situation in plain words.
Out: The obligations that reach the role, the article behind them and what remains.
When: When the question is whether a requirement applies to you, and why.
The difference model
In: A checksum already used and the date of the last reading.
Out: What changed since then: checksum, reading date, passed deadline and rows to revisit.
When: When earlier work is reused and has to be checked first.
The obligation model
In: A legal act or an article, with or without a role filter.
Out: The obligation in the register's wording, the role it reaches, canonical address and reading date.
When: When the answer has to be citable article by article.
Example for an agent
curl -s "https://legal.exploreworldai.com/novacopilot/eu-produktsakerhet?format=agent"- canonical, the address to cite
- node_hash, the checksum for the next comparison
- corpus_version, the corpus version that answered
- freshness.read_at, the reading date of the row
- freshness.next_check, when a new check is reasonable
- citation.string, the finished citation
- agent.receipt, the receipt of the call, without a key
Metadata
- Canonical address
- https://legal.exploreworldai.com/novacopilot/eu-produktsakerhet
- Layer
- index
- Read at
- 2026-08-31
- Freshness
- 86/100
- Checksum
- fcf94459ea36fa83
- Corpus version
- legal-2026-10-01
- Next check
- -
- License
- https://legal.exploreworldai.com/revision
How to cite this page
NovaCopilot (ExploreWorld Legal, Valkiv Ventures AB), https://legal.exploreworldai.com/novacopilot/eu-produktsakerhet, read 2026-08-31, checksum fcf94459ea36fa83, corpus version legal-2026-10-01, license https://legal.exploreworldai.com/revision
- Owner
- Valkiv Ventures AB
- License
- https://legal.exploreworldai.com/revision
- Checksum
- fcf94459ea36fa83
- Fingerprint
- ewai:eu:d4ad25
- Terms
- Use, cite, index and cache. The register as such is not resold.
Source registers
The same material as registers, with read date and source on every row.
FAQ
- Is software a product under EU law?
- Yes, under the revised product liability directive. Standalone software and AI systems are covered, whether embedded or supplied as a service.
- Do product safety and the AI Act apply at the same time?
- Often yes, but the assessment is combined. Where the AI system is a safety component of a product with its own sectoral rules, it is assessed in the existing procedure.
- How do I show what applied at the time?
- With the reading date and hash per node. The citation string from the open machine layer carries both and drops straight into your documentation.
Next step
Three ways to put the register to work in your own practice.
Start with your task
Litigation
Find support in a judgment
Search guiding decisions, see what became final and follow changes in the law.
In-house, deals
Map the rules in a transaction
Move from theme to act and on to the article that carries the duty.
Compliance
Assess the risk in a process
Risk scoring per legal area, with the sources behind every score.