Two documents from the EU Commission that were leaked by Politico have
already been mentioned on this list:
- Single Market: The Evidence *1
- A Digital Single Market for Europe *2
I have looked closer at the these working papers, which give us a
preliminary idea about what the Commission wants with its initiative for
a Digital Single Market(DSM). There are plenty of bright spots, and
also a few reasons to be wary.
The final, official version of the strategy will be presented in not too
long, so I'll keep this preview brief.
As the Commission has already indicated on several occasions, they are
primarily looking to DSM reform as a way of boosting the struggling
European economies. Therefore, reforms with an excepted economic impact
will be on top of their list. We expect them to talk mostly about ending
geoblocking and cutting prices for cross-border deliveries of physical
goods. However, also a few changes that benefit free knowledge are
realistic to expect.
Copyright
We will likely see copyright reform that clarifies the legal environment
for data mining, whether commercial or non-commercial.
Most importantly, the Commission states that they view the national
differences in copyright exceptions as a problem, and may propose that
some of the exceptions are harmonized. This is a more cautious approach
than the one that Julia Reda has proposed in the European Parliament
about harmonizing all copyright exceptions, but nevertheless a step in
the same direction.
The Commission wants to focus on harmonizing exceptions where problems
as a result of fragmentation have been identified. This reinforces the
importance of reminding them of the very real problems that different
European Freedom-of-Panorama regulations are causing.
Intermediary liability
The Commission wants to balance measures that the content industries
will dislike (such as banning geoblocking) with measures that strengthen
copyright enforcement. While they seem reluctant to revisit the
notice-and-action principle in the e-Commerce Directive (which says that
an intermediary is not responsible for users' copyright infringements as
long as they remove unauthorized material when given a notice), they
suggest harmonized procedures for swift removal.
There are also formulations about limiting which services should be
subject to the exception from liability.
Standardization and Interoperability
The ironing out of European ICT standards will continue and increase in
pace. The advisory group "European Multi Stakeholder Platform on ICT
Standardisation" will play a key role. Perhaps it could make sense to
look into how the Wikimedia movement can be more involved in this
process to ensure the use of truly open standards?
*1
http://g8fip1kplyr33r3krz5b97d1.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/…
*2
http://g8fip1kplyr33r3krz5b97d1.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/…
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Karl Sigfrid
+32 487 94 76 30
karl(a)wikimedia.be
Rue du Trone 51
1000 Brussels