[Advocacy Advisors] leak of EU Commission copyright whitepaper

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Luis Villa

23 Jun 2014 23 Jun '14

2:04 p.m.

FYI, it looks like a draft of the EU Commission's response to the recent copyright consultation has been leaked. Summary here: http://ipkitten.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/super-kat-exclusive-heres-commission… Actual draft here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/0xcflgrav01tqlb/White%20Paper%20%28internal%20dra… The blog says: "From a first reading, this [blogger] actually thinks that it is not very ambitious, and pretty aimed at the preservation of the *status quo*." But there are important nuances in there, like: *Civil enforcement* According to the Commission... a number of policy considerations should be explored further, including clarifying what intermediaries can be involved and how, and *focusing on the 'follow the money' approach*. That's going to be an important one for us to keep an eye on - not that we're "the money" per se, but that sort of 'focus' tends to be poorly targeted and catch us by mistake. I haven't been able to read it all yet, but thought I'd share here - interested to hear other people's take. Luis -- Luis Villa Deputy General Counsel Wikimedia Foundation 415.839.6885 ext. 6810 *This message may be confidential or legally privileged. If you have received it by accident, please delete it and let us know about the mistake. As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical reasons I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. For more on what this means, please see our legal disclaimer <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer>.*

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Mathias Schindler

23 Jun 23 Jun

2:08 p.m.

...

I haven't been able to read it all yet, but thought I'd share here - interested to hear other people's take.

First reactions are disappointment with this Whitepaper. I recommend reading this document next to the upcoming Impact Assessment (an early draft has been published on statewatch.org). Mathias

Dimitar Parvanov Dimitrov

2:51 p.m.

Hi all, Skimmed through the document. The basic position is that they recommend action to be taken in the 2014-2019 period, but don't want to say whether this should legislative or other. The positions range from harmonising exceptions (teaching, persons with disability) to basically refraining from any binding steps (in the cases of user-generated content, e-lending). Perhaps one good development is that the Commission sees copyright as "part of a broader set of 'rules of the game'" for the internet, which means that they've gotten the notion of *net politics *comprising many different policy sectors. As Luis pointed out, some nuances might be quite important in setting the tone for the next years. And since this is just a draft and these little bits can change in the final version, I would refrain from making definitive public statements for now. One thing I'd like to point out already, though. The Commission mentions three objectives of a possible copyright reform and two of them contain the word "market". As long as copyright remians an economic tool within DG MARKT, we will need to talk about economic benefits of free knowledge in order to be taken seriously. Talking only about cultural, democratic and educational benefits will relegate us to the role of a second-class stakeholder. Dimi 2014-06-23 16:08 GMT+02:00 Mathias Schindler <mathias.schindler(a)wikimedia.de

...

I haven't been able to read it all yet, but thought I'd share here - interested to hear other people's take.

Luis Villa

2:53 p.m.

On Mon, Jun 23, 2014 at 7:51 AM, Dimitar Parvanov Dimitrov < dimitar.parvanov.dimitrov(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

As long as copyright remians an economic tool within DG MARKT, we will need to talk about economic benefits of free knowledge in order to be taken seriously. Talking only about cultural, democratic and educational benefits will relegate us to the role of a second-class stakeholder.

I'm not at all optimistic about changing that framing here in the US, but any realistic chance of doing it in the EU? Luis -- Luis Villa Deputy General Counsel Wikimedia Foundation 415.839.6885 ext. 6810 *This message may be confidential or legally privileged. If you have received it by accident, please delete it and let us know about the mistake. As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical reasons I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. For more on what this means, please see our legal disclaimer <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer>.*

Jens Best

2:59 p.m.

There is a report about economic impact of Open Data. It can be found in the site of ePSI platform (European public sector information) It gives examples of impact on tax, economic development, jobs etc. in several European countries which freed their data. Maybe this give some inspirations. http://www.epsiplatform.eu/ Best regards from the road Jens Best Am 23.06.2014 16:54 schrieb "Luis Villa" <lvilla(a)wikimedia.org>rg>:

...

On Mon, Jun 23, 2014 at 7:51 AM, Dimitar Parvanov Dimitrov < dimitar.parvanov.dimitrov(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Dimitar Parvanov Dimitrov

3:41 p.m.

2014-06-23 16:53 GMT+02:00 Luis Villa <lvilla(a)wikimedia.org>rg>:

...

I'm not at all optimistic about changing that framing here in the US, but any realistic chance of doing it in the EU?

I am not optimistic about that in the EU either. Therefore I think we'll need to make more of an effort to bring out the economic benefits of our projects if we want to make an impact.

Jan Weisensee

24 Jun 24 Jun

9:06 p.m.

Hi Dimi, all, I can only agree with what has been said about the role of the "market" for the Commission. In my experience, DG Markt officials are very business-minded with a strong focus on cross-border aspects. The DG Markt people I worked with cared more about whether a given proposal creates an EU-wide frictionless market with "healthy" competition rather than whether it protects one particular business model or (non-profit) actor. Moreover, the White Paper sees copyright primarily as "an important driver of economic growth and employment" with the goal of "rewarding creativity and intellectual work". In other words: without copyright no intellectual work, and without intellectual work no jobs. IMHO, as a result of this, we might want to check each argument that we use against: - Its relevance for the Internal Market (with particular emphasis on cross-border access), i.e. its contribution to greater harmonisation; - Possible economic benefits for the digital economy in the EU (such as the ePSI platform Jens mentioned); - Its impact on new business models (new licensing systems, UGC business models, etc.); Best regards, Jan Am 23.06.2014 16:51, schrieb Dimitar Parvanov Dimitrov:

...

Hi all, Skimmed through the document. The basic position is that they recommend action to be taken in the 2014-2019 period, but don't want to say whether this should legislative or other. The positions range from harmonising exceptions (teaching, persons with disability) to basically refraining from any binding steps (in the cases of user-generated content, e-lending). Perhaps one good development is that the Commission sees copyright as "part of a broader set of 'rules of the game'" for the internet, which means that they've gotten the notion of /net politics /comprising many different policy sectors. As Luis pointed out, some nuances might be quite important in setting the tone for the next years. And since this is just a draft and these little bits can change in the final version, I would refrain from making definitive public statements for now. One thing I'd like to point out already, though. The Commission mentions three objectives of a possible copyright reform and two of them contain the word "market". As long as copyright remians an economic tool within DG MARKT, we will need to talk about economic benefits of free knowledge in order to be taken seriously. Talking only about cultural, democratic and educational benefits will relegate us to the role of a second-class stakeholder. Dimi 2014-06-23 16:08 GMT+02:00 Mathias Schindler <mathias.schindler(a)wikimedia.de <mailto:mathias.schindler@wikimedia.de>>:

I haven't been able to read it all yet, but thought I'd share here - interested to hear other people's take.

First reactions are disappointment with this Whitepaper. I recommend reading this document next to the upcoming Impact Assessment (an early draft has been published on statewatch.org <http://statewatch.org>). Mathias _______________________________________________ Advocacy_Advisors mailing list Advocacy_Advisors(a)lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Advocacy_Advisors@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors _______________________________________________ Advocacy_Advisors mailing list Advocacy_Advisors(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors

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Dimitar Parvanov Dimitrov
Jan Weisensee
Jens Best
Luis Villa
Mathias Schindler