While the focus of most policy makers is on the current health emergency, the implementation of the CDSM directive is ongoing. Member states have until the 7th of June 2021 to implement the divisive and complex rules contained in the directive.

A year after the entry into force of the directive a messy picture has emerged. In France, which has already implemented the press publishers right, that implementation has led to an intervention of the competition authority. The Polish government has challenged parts of Article 17 in the CJEU arguing that it violates fundamental rights. And while some Member States have published legislative proposals for the implementation of the directive, most Member States are still holding formal and informal consultations.

Meanwhile, the Commission’s own stakeholder dialogue, which brought more than 80 different stakeholders together to discuss the implementation of Article 17, has come to a COVID19 induced halt after a series of contentious meetings, and all eyes are now on the European Commission which has yet to present a first outline of the implementation guidelines.

During the upcoming COMMUNIA salon, Teresa Nobre (COMMUNIA) will provide an overview of the implementation status in the different member states. Ula Furgal (CREATe) will provide a more in depth perspective on Article 15 (the new press publishers rights) including recent developments in France and Australia. Paul Keller (COMMUNIA) will provide an overview of the discussions surrounding the implementation of Article 17 including the ongoing stakeholder dialogue. Finally, Felix Reda (GFF /control ©) will discuss the role of litigation in ensuring a fundamental rights-preserving implementation of the CDSM directive.

The presentations will be followed by an informal question and answer session.

This event is open for everyone to attend and will be held on Zoom. In order to ensure smooth participation we request participants to register beforehand. Registered participants will receive login information ahead of the event.

The post COMMUNIA Salon: Copyright in the DSM Directive – one year after appeared first on COMMUNIA Association.

For a detailed analysis, please read Communia’s guide on Article 15, authored by Timothy Vollmer, Teresa Nobre and Dimitar Dimitrov.

What is at issue in Article 15?

Article 15 establishes a new right for press publishers that allows them to control the online use of their press publications by information society service providers. Article 15 is problematic because: 1) protects press publications, even if they do not fulfil the originality threshold required for copyright protection; 2) prevents the use of parts of press publications other than “very short extracts”; and 3) creates a new layer of exclusive rights on top of copyright.

Breaking down Article 15

Who can benefit from the right? Publishers of press publications established in the EU.

Which publications are protected? Press publications (collection composed mainly of literary works of a journalistic nature, but which can also include other works or other subject matter).

Which publications are not protected? Press publications first published before 6 June 2019; scientific publications; websites such as blogs.

What rights are granted to press publishers? Reproduction and making available to the public press publications.

Which uses are affected by the new right? Online uses by information society service providers (as defined in Directive (EU) 2015/1535).

Which uses are not affected by the new right? Uses of individual words and very short extracts; hyperlinking; private and non-commercial uses by individuals; uses permitted by copyright exceptions; uses permitted by non-exclusive licenses; use of public domain works; use of mere facts reported in press publications.

How long does the right last? 2 years (calculated from January 1 of the year following publication).

How to deal with Article 15?

Implement article 15. In countries where there is no political willingness to take full advantage of the policy space that is available under the existing EU laws, but only to do what is requested by article 15, one should advocate for the best possible implementation of article 15, which is a version that:

• Adopts an open-ended definition of “very short extracts”, which supports a floor, not a ceiling, with regard to length/amount of content this will cover
• Makes all existing copyright exceptions and limitations applicable to the new right
• Clarifies that other exemptions only mentioned in recitals (facts, blogs) are not subject to the new right

Move beyond article 15. A progressive implementation that upholds access to information for users while at the same time provides a realistic opportunity for press publishers would be for Member States to make it clear that press publishers are permitted to waive their new right.

The post Implementing the new EU press publishers’ right appeared first on COMMUNIA Association.

After a year-long study that includes a public consultation and a number of committee hearings on a wide variety of issues, the INDU committee has come to the conclusion that there is a lack of evidence for both a DSM-style press publishers right and for changes to the liability position of platform intermediaries as foreseen in Article 17 of the DSM directive. While Canadian rightsholders argued for the necessity of such interventions, they failed to convince the committee of the merits for these provisions.

On the press publishers right the report essentially takes a wait and see approach (i.e. to see just how badly the EU will fail on these points) that conveys a healthy amount of scepticism with regard to the effectiveness of the EU approach.

The production and dissemination of news content is essential to democratic societies. While the Committee supports the notion that OSPs who profit from the dissemination of copyrighted content they do not own should fairly remunerate its rights-holders, legislators around the world are only starting to develop and implement legislative frameworks to compel OSPs to do so. Canada should learn from the failures and successes of these initiatives to determine whether they serve the interests of Canadians. (page 53)

The report goes on to discuss potential changes to the “Safe Harbour Provisions” that apply to online service providers. Unsurprisingly this discussion is based on the “value gap” rhetoric that provided the germ of the upload filtering provisions contained in Article 17 of the DSM directive. The section on “Safe Harbour Provisions” (pages 74-83) is well worth reading as it makes it clear that there is no such thing as a single “value gap” that can be filled via a legislative intervention, and that changing the liability rules for online service providers will have damaging effects well beyond the music sector:

The Committee understands that many rights-holders lack the bargaining power to increase the revenues they obtain from OSPs. The Committee also agrees with the principle that OSPs who profit from the dissemination of copyrighted content they do not own should fairly remunerate rights-holders. However, proposed amendments to sections 31.1 and 41.27 of the Act would be too blunt a solution to address the issue, especially since there is no consensus among stakeholders about which OSPs cause problems and why. (page 82)

In light of this the committee again takes a wait and see approach, noting correctly that there are still a large number of open questions with regard to the actual workings of the Article 17 of the DSM directive:

Legislators around the world are only starting to develop and implement legislative frameworks to review the proper scope of liability exemptions available to OSPs and require them to fairly remunerate rights-holders. We are yet to see, for example, how EU members will implement the Directive and what results different approaches will yield. The Government should take the time to learn from the successes and failures of these initiatives to determine whether they serve the long-term interests of all Canadians. (page 83)

But the report does not stop at calling for a halt to attempts to change the liability position of online platforms simply because only the music industry would like to see it implemented. Instead it points out that there are substantial problems with content filtering systems that are currently being used by commercial platforms (such as YouTube’s ContentID) and calls on platform operators to offer better protection for users rights:

The Committee finds it questionable, for example, that an OSP’s content management policies would require taking down or de-monetizing content uploaded on a platform before giving its uploader the opportunity to respond to allegations of copyright infringement. (page 82)

This touches on one of the core problems of the entire discussion about upload filtering. Filters are incapable of recognizing uses of copyrighted material that are perfectly legal because they are covered by a copyright exception. They are also dependent on the often imperfect information about ownership provided by rightsholders. This regularly leads to overfiltering that harms both users and content creators. Yet Article 17 of the DSM copyright directive provides strong incentives for platforms to make this problem even worse, and it is a good sign that the INDU report emphasises that for platforms to comply with copyright law they must do a better job at fighting infringement and protecting user rights.

The Committee emphasizes that no entity is entitled to safe harbour exceptions–there is no “right” to safe harbour in Canadian copyright law. These exceptions reflect instead the fact that Parliament recognizes that some entities serve an intermediary function that warrants a special status under the Act. However, this status must nonetheless be earned by complying with the Act as a whole. OSPs in particular would be wise to review their practices and the structure of their platforms to ensure that they reflect the full extent of applicable law, including the rules governing both copyright infringement and its exceptions. (page 83)

Since filters are unable to recognise uses of copyrighted works that are covered by an exception, one way to ensure that users’ rights are not limited would be to require platforms to give uploaders the possibility to respond to allegations of copyright infringement before taking down or blocking their uploads. This would respect the “innocent until proven guilty” principle that has been overturned by privatised enforcement systems like ContentID that primarily exist to keep rightholders happy at the expense of user rights.

It will be very interesting to see how the EU Member States will address the conflicting requirements of Article 17 to both filter at rightholders request (Article 17(4)) and to ensure that users can rely on key exceptions (Article 17(7)). In order to resolve this contradiction they might want to take inspiration from the recommendations from the Canadian legislature.

The post Canadian copyright report: Let’s wait and see how upload filters and press publishers rights will fail. appeared first on COMMUNIA Association.

We believe that the Directive in its current form is a step back for the Digital Single Market rather than a step forward.

Most notably we regret that the Directive does not strike the right balance between the protection of right holders and the interests of EU citizens and companies. It therefore risks to hinder innovation rather than promote it and to have a negative impact the competitiveness of the European Digital Single Market.

Furthermore, we feel that the Directive lacks legal clarity, will lead to legal uncertainty for many stakeholders concerned and may encroach upon EU citizens’ rights.

These criticisms are very much in line with our own assessment of the directive and it is unfortunate that the rest of the Member States have chosen to ignore them. After this week’s approval by the Member States it is now up to the European Parliament to prevent the directive (or its most harmful element, Article 13) from being passed into law. There is no date for the final plenary vote yet, but the final showdown is widely expected to take place anytime between mid-March and mid-April.

Internet is should be for the people

In the light of this we have now updated our overall analysis of the directive (which we had first published in January) to reflect the final compromise text. The final trilogue negotiations have resulted in changes to the text related to the Text and Data mining exception, the publishers right, the fair remuneration right and — most notably — Article 13. By and large the changes to the text have been minor and in line with our expectations, and as a result our overall assessment of the directive as a whole remains negative. The finals text will do a lot of harm to internet users and needs to be blocked from becoming law.

Last minute surprise: Harmonisation of users’ rights

There is however one area where the trilogue negotiations have resulted in a last minute turn for the better. In a somewhat unexpected move the negotiators agreed on language in Article 13 that would make two of the existing (but currently optional) exceptions of the InfoSoc directive mandatory. If adopted paragraph 5 of Article 13 would require those member states who currently do not have the quotation and parody exceptions implemented to do so (at least with regards to uses that fall within the scope of Article 13).

The new language will do nothing to achieve its stated goal (namely ensure that users will be able to continue to share memes and other remixes via the platforms that fall under Article 13) but it will be another small step in the direction of a EU copyright system where users have the same rights in all member states. It is somewhat ironic that the harmonisation of existing exceptions that should have have been the main element of the reform package (there cannot be a Digital Single Market unless users have the same rights independent of the Member State they are in) has only slipped into the text at the very last minute and in the shadows of the controversy surrounding the upload filters. This is clearly an improvement of the legal situation of EU internet users and as a result we have changed our assessment of the right to remix issue from -2 to +1.

No amount of wishful thinking can ensure that upload filters respect user rights

Unfortunately this does nothing to improve Article 13. As we have argued again and again, the upload filters that platforms will be forced to implement under Article 13 are incapable of distinguishing between uses of a work that are infringing and those that are legal because they are covered by a copyright exception. Ensuring that these two exceptions are in place in all member states does not change the fact that the filters will not be able to recognise that a use is covered by them. Regardless of how often the legislator writes it into the text of the directive (at this moment both art 13(5) and 13(8) contain a requirement that the “measures” should not result in the blocking of works that are used under an exception) upload filters will severely limit users’ rights. Given this we have maintained our -3 score of the upload filters issue issue.

Our overall assessment remains unchanged: The proposed Directive is bad, and will not make the internet work for people. The final “compromise” text has done nothing to accommodate the concerns we and others have raised for the past 30 months. As long as Article 13 remains part of the package, the only sensible way forward it to make sure that Directive will be rejected by the European Parliament.

The post A “compromise” that fails to deliver – our overall assessment of the directive remains negative appeared first on COMMUNIA Association.

To understand what has happened during the negotiations, it is illustrative to look at the differences between the final compromise and the text that had been agreed among the EU member states last week (which was the result of horse trading between the French and German governments).

A win for dominant platforms…

Yesterday’s compromise text is largely in line with the French-German deal. This includes a terrible version of Article 13 that will severely limit users ability to express themselves online. It will also further consolidate the power of dominant platforms, as smaller platforms will struggle with implementing expensive filtering technology and supporting the increased costs for dealing with increased liability.

It also introduces a EU-wide neighbouring right for press publishers that will have very similar effects. It benefits dominant platforms who can afford compliance while creating additional costs and risks for smaller players. As a result, users will likely end up with less access to information and the diversity of information available online will likely suffer. Under these conditions it remains to be seen if rightsholders will indeed manage to extract more value from the large intermediaries.    

…at the expense of users and creators

As if this would not be bad enough, the negotiators have introduced last minute changes to the text that further weaken provisions that were intended to protect the rights of users and individual creators. The French/German deal did not (at least not clearly) include a UGC exception for users of every online platform, but it used language that at least applied to  user-generated content uploaded to the platforms covered by Article 13. The final compromise has adopted questionable language that may or may not  provide a meaningful protection for users of platforms covered by Article 13, depending on whether Member States are obliged to fully implement the existing quotation and parody exceptions provided in the InfoSoc Directive, and make them applicable to user-generated content, which is not evident from the text.

Likewise the negotiators have gutted a key provision that was intended to ensure that individual authors and performers receive fair remuneration for online uses of their works. Instead of ensuring that they receive compensation for the exploitation of their works, proportionate to the revenues generated, the final language contains a loophole that allows the very practice of lump sum payments that this provision was intended to end.

Taken together these changes result in a directive that will mainly preserve the status quo and that has shed all noble intentions of strengthening the rights of users and creators and bringing more harmonisation into the fragmented EU copyright system. To the contrary, the directive introduces more complexity, privatizes enforcement and increases the legal risks for online operators in the EU. Instead of creating a EU copyright framework that works with the internet, the EU legislator has created a legislative monstrosity that works against the internet and will reinforce some of its most problematic aspects, such as the centralisation of services in the hands of a handful of US-owned platforms.

A final chance to stop the directive (so we can start anew)

We will provide more detailed analysis of the final compromise in the coming days once the official text is available. Before becoming EU law, the text still needs to pass a number of procedural steps. The first two of these, approval by the Member States and by the JURI committee of the European Parliament, are almost certain to happen.

It is the final vote of the whole European Parliament, which will take place in late March or early April, that creates an opportunity to stop this directive from becoming law. In order to achieve this MEPs need to be told loud and clear that yesterday’s deal is bad for users, bad for creators bad for the EU internet economy (you can do so via www.saveyourinternet.eu). Yesterday’s deal is so bad that the only sensible way forward is to vote it down and rethink from scratch what a modern EU copyright framework should look like.

The post After 30 months, EU legislators agree to sell out users and creators to big platforms and big content. appeared first on COMMUNIA Association.

Our aim, with this project, is to present how the Directive  will either empower or hurt users and creators in the digital age. The rules that regulate creativity and sharing must be fair and take into account contemporary online activities and digital practices. Essentially, the internet needs to be for the people, and key legislation needs to be based on this principle.

In order to do this, we analysed nine different issues that are included (or have not been included) in the proposal for the Directive: Upload Filters, the Press Publishers Right, Text and Data mining, access to Cultural Heritage, Education, the protection of the Public Domain, a Right to Remix, Freedom of Panorama and Fair Remuneration for Authors and Performers. Each issue was then scored, allowing us to provide an overall score of the Directive based on an understanding of all elements of the proposal.

Too often, the Directive is reduced just to a few controversial issues: content filtering or a new right for publishers. These are clearly crucial issues, but it is important to understand that the Directive includes other rules that can also have massive effects on Europe’s research and science, education, cultural, or AI industry–just to name a few.

We decided to analyse the Directive through a particular lens: of the potential to either empower or hurt users and creators in the digital age. We are critical of views that the Directive simply attempts to regulate business relationships between two sectors, and that therefore the policy debate should be left to them. The Directive will have tremendous impact on all European citizens, who depend in all aspects of their lives on communication systems and digital tools that copyright law regulates.

The internet needs to be for the people. This means that core policies, like copyright law, need to be “for the people” by design. As our analysis shows, the final proposal for the Directive will likely be a legislative mixed bag. A range of positive developments concerning exceptions and limitations – rules that grant people the freedoms to use content for personal needs or public interest goals – are offered alongside other regulatory proposals that will have extremely adverse effects across all spheres of European society.

On Monday policy makers will have one more chance to fix some of the shortcomings of the proposed directive. Based on the current state of affairs it seems extremely unlikely that this will fundamentally alter the our negative overall assessment of the directive: Seen as a whole, the proposed Directive is bad, and will not make the internet work for European citizens.

The post Ahead of last trilogue: on balance the directive is bad for users and creators in Europe appeared first on COMMUNIA Association.

But here we are now years later in the thick of the trilogue negotiations, and the EU legislator is finally trying to figure out what to do about Article 11. Similar to Article 13 and content filter, we expect that the final compromise text of the directive will include some version of the press publishers right.

The waivable press publishers right

Our long-held view remains: Article 11 should be removed from the copyright directive. The provision is patently harmful to journalism, access to information, and the digital single market. The option to make the press publishers right waivable is simply one way to slightly improve the press publishers right if deletion is impossible. If the negotiators can’t be convinced by the mountains of research, empirical evidence observed in prior trials, and near universal public opposition to this unnecessary right, then the legislator must do everything it can to mitigate the negative effects that would be faced by news publishers and news seekers in the EU.

One of the worst aspects of Article 11 is that it applies whether publishers want it or not. As written by Creative Commons recently, the press publishers right “would undermine the intention of authors who wish to share without additional strings attached, such as creators who want to share works under open licenses […] forcing publishers who use CC to accept additional unwaivable rights to receive payment violates the letter and spirit of Creative Commons licensing and denies publishers the freedom to conduct business and share content as they wish.”

The new press publishers right and commons

CC wrote that if including some version of Article 11 is unavoidable, it should include protections for works under open licenses, or in the public domain. For instance, the Council text included a provision that said, “When a work or other subject-matter is incorporated in a press publication on the basis of a non-exclusive licence, the rights […] may not be invoked to prohibit the use by other authorised users [or] works or other subject-matter whose protection has expired.”

The concerns of publishers

Small and medium-sized publisher are worried about the effects the unwaivable press publishers right will have on their operations too. In October the European Innovative Media Publishers sent a letter to the trilogue negotiators outlining how they will be harmed if Article 11 is adopted. They’ve also launched a petition that calls for the deletion of Article 11, or at least the introduction of mechanisms that would “reduce some of the collateral damage to small and medium-sized publishers.” The signatories believe that having their press publications incorporated into news aggregators and other online search tools obviously helps drive traffic to their content, without the need for requiring other payments from aggregators or news agencies. From their petition:

The introduction of a neighbouring right in Germany and Spain make it harder for us to grow online, reach new audiences and develop new markets. They create new barriers for entry for publishers to develop online. In Spain, we are even deprived of control over our own content, and obliged to charge via a collecting society, whether we like it or not. […]

We adamantly believe that any publisher’s right must give publishers the choice to consent to the sharing of their content online. Aggregators, search engines and other online services drive valuable traffic to publishers’ websites, particularly smaller or local ones; and this traffic referral creates huge opportunities to generate revenue through advertising.

Thus, one way to reduce the collateral damage of Article 11 is to make the press publishers right waivable. Even Google, which has basically threatened to shutter Google News throughout Europe if Article 11 passes, is now advocating for the ability of publishers to waive the press publishers right should it make its way into the compromise version of the directive. Google says, “the copyright directive should give all publishers the right to control their own business models and destiny by giving them the choice to waive the need for a commercial license for their content.”

The post A Waivable Press Publishers Right Would Be Less of a Disaster appeared first on COMMUNIA Association.

Limiting the damage by clearly identifying the services targeted

Under these conditions it seems that the most promising approach to minimize the harm that will be caused by these articles will be to limit what type of services they apply to.

Article 11 should be modified in such a way that it only applies to search engines and news aggregators. These are the type of services that press publishers are claiming to cause them harm (which we continue to doubt). This would prevent a lot of legal uncertainty (and thus damage) for everyone else on the internet.

The same approach makes sense for article 13. The music industry and other rightsholders have consistently argued that they are harmed by large online platforms that allow users to share audiovisual (AV) works. Given that the stated objective of the proponents of article 13 is to create a better bargaining position for rightsholders vis a vis YouTube, Facebook, Google and other commercial platforms, it seems reasonable to limit the types of services that would need to comply with article 13 to for-profit audio visual platforms that compete with licensed services only. Such a measure would prevent a lot of legal uncertainty for platforms that do not deal with AV works or do not operate on a for profit basis.

Both the European Parliament and the Council have made baby steps in this direction by including a (growing) list of exceptions to the definition of Online Content Sharing Service Providers (OCSSPs are the services that would need to comply with Article 13). As we have argued before this approach is deeply flawed and should be replaced by a positive definition of the type of services covered. If the EU lawmaker intends to introduce a measure that targets the dominant commercial content sharing platforms then it should have the honesty to state this outright.

Article 13 as a competitive advantage for YouTube et al?

In its current form article 13 looks anything but a measure that would reign in the power of the big commercial platforms. We have been arguing for awhile that imposing complex filtering obligations and increased liability on all online platforms will create a competitive advantage for the market leaders, as they are the ones who can easily absorb the costs related to compliance with new rules. On the other hand, it is likely that smaller competitors will struggle with compliance.

That this is not only a theoretical possibility is clearly illustrated by a Financial Times OpEd that YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki published on Monday. In her piece Wojcicki – who has become increasingly vocal about article 13 after the summer – highlights the size of YouTube’s royalty payments to rightsholders and complains about the costs that complying with article 13 would cause for YouTube. Woven through this narrative she promotes Content ID (YouTube’s own filtering technology) as “the best solution for managing rights on a global scale”.

Not surprisingly she then suggests that EU policy makers should change article 13 so that it would be based on “smart rights management technology, similar to Content ID” and that “Platforms that follow these rules, […] shouldn’t be held directly liable for every single piece of content that a user uploads.”

In other words YouTube hopes that article 13 will be modified so that YouTube would only need to make minimal efforts to comply while its competitors (and countless services that are operating in completely unrelated areas) would need to invest in costly technology to play catch up with YouTube. This possibility has been present in article 13 although policy makers so far chosen to ignore it. Hopefully the fact that YouTube now clearly telegraphs its intentions will serve as a wake up call for policy makers.

If the EU legislator wants to avoid passing regulation that will further strengthen the position of the currently dominant set of platforms then they should limit the obligations introduced by Article 13 to target these platforms only. As we have pointed out above, the best way to achieve this is to include a targeted definition of the services that need to comply into the text.

Obviously this intervention would not solve all the problematic aspects of article 13. Even with a more targeted version of article 13 the legislator needs to ensure that the fundamental rights of users are protected. Enforcement of copyright must not become a pre-emptive, arbitrary and privately-enforced censorship of legal content.

It is up to all parties involved to ensure that article 13 does not end up benefiting a small number of already dominant platforms. In this case it would not only hurt internet uses and creators but also those who have unleashed this legislative monstrosity.

The post Reminder: Article 13 will help dominant platforms, not hurt them appeared first on COMMUNIA Association.

On the table are a wide range of proposals to amend three of the most controversial parts of the proposed directive, as well as a number of attempts to address omissions in the original text. However, large parts of the JURI text, such as the exceptions dealing with education and access to cultural heritage, have been left untouched and will not be affected by Wednesday’s vote.

EU lawmakers will have the opportunity to agree on some meaningful improvements to the proposed directive which would then become part of the Parliament’s position for the upcoming trilogue negotiation with the European Commission and the Member States. An improved Parliament position is badly needed since the European Commission’s original plan was terribly disappointing and the Member States have adopted a position that is even worse on crucial parts of the proposed directive. In order to keep open the possibility that the EU copyright reform process will result in real improvements to the EU copyright system MEPs must:

• Text and data mining: Vote for an expanded version of the exception for text and data mining in Article which would allow anyone to text and data mine all legally accessible copyright protected works. This would be guaranteed by a set of amendments tabled by a cross-party coalition called the Digital Agenda Intergroup. Not adopting their amendments would mean that Europe will shut itself off from an essential tool for scientific, societal and economic progress.
• Press publishers right: Delete the unnecessary and counterproductive Article 11, but it deletion is not possible, limit the most negative effects by refusing to grant press publishers additional rights that will hinder access to knowledge. This would be guaranteed by sets of amendments proposed by the Digital Agenda Intergroup and by the Greens/EFA political group.
• Upload filters: Ensure that the attempts to address an imaginary value gap driven by the music industry by introducing mandatory upload filters do not damage the open nature of the internet and limit the freedom of (creative) expression online. In addition to deletion of Article 13 the damage can be limited by adopting amendments proposed by the Internal Market and Consumer Protection committee or the Digital Agenda Intergroup.
• User-generated content: Vote in favor of the new amendments that clarify that users may engage with copyrighted works through remixes, memes and other types of user-generated content (UGC). Support for UGC was indicated in the JURI recitals, but left out of the article text. There are amendments tabled the Digital Agenda Intergroup as well as several MEPs including Cavada, Reda, Adinolfi, and Maštálka.
• Freedom of Panorama: Vote in favor of new amendments that clarify the ability for European citizens to take and share photography of artworks and architecture in public spaces (freedom of panorama). There are amendments tabled by the Digital Agenda Intergroup as well as MEPs Maštálka and Reda.
• New rights for sports broadcasters and image search: Vote against the additional copyright protection gifted to sports events organisers snuck into the JURI report, as well as the addition of a licensing requirement for image search engines. Neither of these amendments were debated nor received a sufficient level of scrutiny by the Parliament, and both would result in substantial expansions of the scope of copyright that must be opposed given the absence of any evidence supporting such measures.
• Support for the public domain: Vote in favor of the amendments that add a positive definition of the public domain to the EU copyright framework. Copyright law takes a big part of its legitimacy from the fact that it creates temporary exclusive rights and this fundamental principle deserves explicit recognition in EU law. MEPs should support the amendments introduced by MEP Adinolfi.

The post MEPs Can Still Salvage the Copyright Directive in Today’s Vote appeared first on COMMUNIA Association.

In other words, the question that MEPs will have to decide this week, is if we accept the fact that fundamental principles of the Internet get thrown overboard at the request of particular industries who stand to benefit from such a move, even if it is clear that everybody else will be worse off as a result. Over the past weeks it has become clear that people are not happy with this prospect. MEPs have been overwhelmed with angry mails from Internet users, online creators have warned about the end of certain forms of creativity, people have taken to the streets in more than 30 places across Europe and more than 145 civil society organisations once again confirmed their opposition to the proposed measures.

In the light of these massive protests, the music industry which is the driving force behind the Article 13 upload filters is in damage control mode trying to downplay the effects of the measures it is calling for. Their fairly ridiculous attempt to position article 13 as “pro memes and mashups” was quickly debunked on social media and by European copyright scholars. The fact that scholarly opinion on the proposed changes, which largely overlaps with the perception by users, has been completely ignored by the members of the JURI committee is one of the driving forces behind the attempt to stop the JURI negotiation mandate this week.

So who is in favour of the measures approved by JURI and who is against them? Who should European lawmakers listen to when it comes to deciding on changes to the copyright regime that will have far-reaching effects for users, creators and businesses alike?

In favor of the JURI mandate: The position adopted by the Legal Affairs committee is supported by pretty much any organisation representing rightsholders and professional creators that is active in Brussels.

Against the JURI mandate: On the other side of the Debate we find the Civil Liberties and Consumer Protection committee of the European Parliament (both of which had adopted a more reasonable version of Article 13), more than 50 civil liberties organisations, organisations representing technology startups and software developers who all stand to lose from the proposed measures. Equally important are the warning voices coming from academics at Europe’s leading IP research centers, a group of the original architects of the Internet, the United Nation’s special rapporteur on the freedom of expression. Other critical voices come from creators, the Wikipedia community and hundreds of thousands of Internet users who have been contacting their MEPs via saveyourinternet.eu (and other platforms).

Most of these voices have been ignored by the debate in the JURI committee which has shown a particular disregard for independent expertise throughout the process. It is now up to all members of the European Parliament to decide if the Parliament should enter into negotiations with the Member States and the Commission based on the narrow view taken by the members of the JURI committee or on a view that takes these voices into account.

The post European Parliament to vote on copyright reform mandate this week – who’s voice will matter? appeared first on COMMUNIA Association.