Hi guys,
We only have one week left on the www.rightcopyright.eu <http://www.rightcopyright.eu/> campaign - I know a lot of you have already signed, thank you! If you have not: what are you waiting for!?
We still need a lot of signatures to get to our goal, and a couple of days to make it. As you know we are collecting signatures to let the policymakers in Brussels know we need a better copyright for education. Right now, education exceptions are fragmented across Europe, which make sharing online difficult to do legally. We want to make sure we have equal rights for educators across the EU, and this includes museums, libraries, archives and other heritage institutions. Help us to achieve this goal by signing and sharing the petition.
Please share to everyone and their mother the link to sign. We have the website in 13 European languages so you can share widely to people who are not English readers.
You can:
1. Retweet this: https://twitter.com/communia_eu/status/860788880445976576 or make your own tweet
2. Share this on Facebook: “You may not know it, but you are breaking the law. Help us change this: bit.ly/rightcpy #rightcopyright”
3. Share this e-mail with mailing lists, friends/colleagues:
“Dear ****,
All over Europe, you are working towards shaping a new education system. A system that is collaborative, open and invites you to make the most of the tools and technologies around you. Unfortunately, copyright laws haven’t changed for over fifteen years, and this is affecting you every day.
We would like to invite you to join us in our mission to shape the future of education now. Let’s make copyright right. Right now.
Are you with us? Sign the petition at rightcopyright.eu.
We really appreciate your support!
[Name + email signature]”
4. Include a quick message about the campaign in any newsletters you might send, or think might be relevant for the campaign. You can find gifs and other useful things here: https://rightcopyright.eu/spread-the-word/ <https://rightcopyright.eu/spread-the-word/>
5. All of the above :slightly_smiling_face:
Please let me know if there are any questions or remarks,
Cheers,
Lisette Kalshoven
--
Kennisland | www.kl.nl | t +31205756720 | m +31613943237 | @lnkalshoven | skype: lisette.kalshoven
This is a great place to have copyright focused discussions and meet people
from across Europe. Highly recommended.
Dimi
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Krzysztof Siewicz <krzysztof.siewicz(a)nowoczesnapolska.org.pl>
Date: 2017-05-09 12:36 GMT+02:00
Subject: CopyCamp 2017 open call for speakers - please distribute!
To:
Hello,
* The Modern Poland Foundation is pleased to inform that the Open Call for
Speakers at the 6th International CopyCamp conference (September 28-29,
2017 in Warsaw) has launched under the title "Beyond copyright: how
exclusive rights affect real life?" *
* We would be more than grateful if you distribute this information in your
communities. About CopyCamp In the last 5 years, we have succeeded in
making CopyCamp the biggest conference about social and economic aspects of
copyright in Europe. It has been the place for a balanced, original, and
multi-sided debate. Over this time, we have facilitated exchange of ideas
about exclusive rights between 250 speakers from all over Europe and
abroad. At CopyCamp we discuss the law, but it is not a legal conference.
Our participants share their stories touching on real-life issues,
questioning popular beliefs that only experts should be concerned with
exclusive rights. Usually, we reach out to people active in culture,
education, science, government and technology. This year we also wish to
invite those active in other areas, for example, health, food or security.
Open call details We invite our prospective speakers to submit presentation
proposals at: https://copycamp.pl/en/contact/register-speaker/
<https://copycamp.pl/en/contact/register-speaker/>. Please note: your
presentation should not exceed 10 minutes. Please include an abstract of no
more than 1800 characters under one of the following thematic tracks: -
business models, heritage digitization, remix What are the boundaries of
appropriation in culture? Who owns the past and whether these exclusive
rights allow to control the present and the future? How to make money from
creativity without selling yourself? - health, food, security, and
exclusive rights In the age when information and its various embodiments
are subject to exclusive rights, who owns medicines and equipment necessary
to provide health care? Who owns grain and machines used to harvest it if
they are protected with patent-like rights or DRM? To what extent exclusive
rights can affect what you eat, how you exercise, or whether you can apply
a specific treatment? - text and data mining, machine learning, online
education Who owns the data fed to algorithms? Do you own the algorithms
you use to mine this data? What about the inferred knowledge? To what
extent exclusive rights may affect the way you do business or research?
What does it mean to own data about someone, or data necessary for that
person’s education? - IoT: autonomous cars, smart homes, wearables What
does it mean to own exclusive rights to software and data used to construct
autonomous agents? What can you do with an interconnected “thing”? What
will it mean in a near future for traditional concepts such as property or
personality? - hacking government data, public procurement, public aid in
culture Who owns information created using public money? How can this
information be appropriated? What is the role of government in the
development of information infrastructure? Deadline: May 31, 2017 Open call
results will be announced by the end of June The organisers are not capable
of covering expenses related with Open Call speakers’ participation in the
CopyCamp conference. As always, we will be pleased to host all interested
parties in a neutral and friendly space, and encourage participants to
share thoughts and exchange ideas.*
Kind regards,
Krzysztof Siewicz
tl;dr
Ça y est ! The copyright amendments in the lead European Parliament
committees have been proposed. From now on we are focused on building
consensus and forging compromises. In the meanwhile, we answered the
European Commission’s consultation on “data driven economy”, telling them
that a new related right on data isn’t a swell idea. In Hungary, a new
proposed law might make operating NGOs with funds from abroad very
unpleasant.
This and past reports: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Monitor
===
Copyright reform - Amendments on the table: With the exception of the
tardive Civil Liberties Committee all relevant bodies have proposed their
amendments to the EU copyright reform text. [1] Why this is so important?
>From now on no new text can be added, meaning that the final version that
the European Parliament will adopt must be made out of wordings and
snippets already on the table. The rapporteurs and their shadows are
starting to plough through the 3000+ amendments and to look for possible
compromises.
---
Legal Affairs Committee (JURI): This is the main lead committee.
Essentially, the version it adopts will be one voted on in plenary, except
for Article 13 (upload filtering). We are still waiting for the committee's
secretariat to compile the file with the 1000+ amendments and to send it to
the translation services, which makes it a bit hard to analyse what we will
be working against in the coming months. What we know for sure is that a
full Freedom of Panorama has been proposed by MEPs from the Social
Democrat, Liberal, Green and Radical Left groups. We are unsure about the
Conservative Reformist group. We also know that a Safeguard the Public
Domain clause has been proposed by the Social Democrat and Green shadow
rapporteurs. Other than that, positive changes on the table are a complete
deletion of the press publishers’ right, a removal of the upload filtering
provisions, a full user-generated content exception, a full text and data
mining exception and several broad educational exceptions.
What we cannot really know yet is what and how many negative proposals are
heading our way. From here on the next step is for the rapporteur and her
shadow rapporteurs (one from each political group) to figure out where they
can reach an agreement ahead of the committee vote. The first consideration
of amendments has been scheduled for the 29 & 30 May. Until then many
conversations will be had.
---
Internal Market Committee (IMCO): This committee takes the lead only on
Article 13, which is asking for online platforms with large amounts of
user-generated content to install “content recognition technologies” and to
cooperate with rightsholders. There was a meeting of this committee last
Monday where this role of online platforms was debated. [2] Although the
context of the discussing included another Directive, there still seems to
be a majority that recognises that this is also a censorship issue
(something we have been raising). Even Christian Democrat MEPs are
critical. It seem clear that Article 13 with substantially change in
nature. It is however not clear how. Most MEPs want to keep some text
included, but are struggling to find the wording that will appease most
stakeholders. We from Wikimedia are emphasising that public domain content,
content used under exceptions & limitations and freely licensed should be
by default excluded from the provision. More importantly, we need to make
sure that the intermediary liability provisions of the E-Commerce Directive
remain in place. The million euro question is, what do rightsholders get in
return, if we get all these safeguards and delete any mention of “content
recognition technologies”?
---
Opinion Giving Committees: The rapporteur of the Industry and Trade
Committee (ITRE) has decided to work on an opinion dealing only with text
and data mining and Article 13. On the first topic Mr. Krasnodebski (ECR
PL) has proposed a full and broad exception that we can fully embrace. On
the latter, his team are currently working on a compromise with the
shadows. There is political willingness to listen to our concerns and try
to reflect them in the compromise text.
The Culture Committee (CULT) is not great on too many issues, but has
proposed a baseline Freedom of Panorama (mandatory everywhere but details
up to Member States). What is a surprising turn is that the Christian
Democrats are supporting such an exception while the Italian shadow from
Movimento 5 Stelle, who have previously supported a full Freedom of
Panorama, now prefers not having it at all.
The Civil Liberties Committee (LIBE) has, after some political wrangling,
finally received the right to contribute an opinion. They are joining the
procedure very late, which means that by the time they are done the lead
committees might have already agreed on many compromises. Still, the LIBE
opinion can be used to feed new wordings into the process.
===
European Data Economy Consultation: After roaming, data protection,
privacy, digital contracts, geo-blocking and copyright, the European
Commission is now tackling data as its next big Digital Single Market
package. We have communicated to the Commission as early as 2016 (by form
of meetings with the relevant units and two political cabinets) that the
Database Rights Directive and the sui generis right it establishes is a
major nuisance. Instead of tacking this clearly defined issue, the European
Commission ran an extremely, blatantly biased consultation [3] (excuse me,
but these qualifications are actually an understatement) on how to improve
the European Data Economy. Their premise is that data is valuable and
should be used and shared. Companies don’t share (read: sell) their data
because they have no way to protect its economic value. So, by establishing
a new copyright-like right on data, sharing in Europe will be fostered.
Wikimedia [4][5] and EDRi [6] have answered the consultation. In our
answers, we kept hammering the point across that current legal obstacles
are what is hindering the sharing of non-personal data. We also called them
out on their bias and made sure not to forget to mention that personal data
must remain protected. Next we are expecting a dialogue or some other form
of structured, real-life consultation.
===
Hungary: The government proposed new law in Hungary that would require NGOs
receiving more than 7.2M HUF (~23000 EUR) from foreign sources ("directly
or indirectly", whatever that means) to register as an "organization
supported from abroad" and say that on every publication it issues. It also
includes stringent reporting criteria for foreign funds (including the name
and location of every single donor). Text of the proposal [7] (in
Hungarian), Council of Europe review
<https://www.coe.int/en/web/ingo/-/the-conference-of-ingos-calls-on-hungary-…>.
[8]
This is part of a trend of government hostility to NGOs, especially
watchdog and liberal NGOs, which are seen as tools of international
political forces. Another planned but not yet proposed legislation would
require NGO officials to publish a wealth declaration, much like
politicians.
This would probably be a significant burden on NGOs operating in a
chapter/grant system like Wikimedia does, both administratively and because
"organizations supported from abroad" would likely become targets of
pro-government propaganda.
(HT Tisza Gergő)
===
Your Input: From now on this report will offer a tribune to policy related
news from European countries. Please don’t hesitate to just drop me some
text if you believe it fits here. Many thanks to Tisza for being the first
to volunteer!
===
[1]
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/popups/ficheprocedure.do?reference=2016/…
[2]
http://www.emeeting.europarl.europa.eu/committees/agenda/201704/IMCO/CJ18(2…
[3]
https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/public-consultation-buil…
[4]
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/European_Data_Economy_C…
[5]
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/European_Data_Economy_C…
[6]https://pad.edri.org/public_pad/Data%20Economy%20public%20consultation
[7]http://www.parlament.hu/irom40/14967/14967.pdf
[8]
https://www.coe.int/en/web/ingo/-/the-conference-of-ingos-calls-on-hungary-…