tl;dr
Actions against upload filters going on in several countries as the Council
and Parliament discussions enter decisive phase.
This and past reports: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Monitor
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Copyright Reform - Red Hot Upload Filters
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State of play in the Council: The upload filtering in Article 13 of the
copyright reform, an idea that automatic upload filters for online
platforms can solve copyright infringement issues, remains the talk of
town. Wikimedia strongly opposes this idea as such filters cannot account
for exceptions and fair use provisions. On the other hand, the content
industries (music and film) would like to use this proposal to force
user-generated content platforms into compulsory licensing deals. In the
Council, the Bulgarian Presidency compromise pitch [1] that was floated in
February doesn’t really address our issues and, at least according to some
[2], basically just reiterates the very copyright-industry-friendly French
position. It really looks like the blocking minority against the general
monitoring of uploads is shaky and a lot of will depend on the new German
government's behaviour, the Presidencies of Bulgaria (until end of June)
and Austria (from beginning of July).
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State of play in the Parliament: In the European Parliament’s lead Legal
Affairs committee the rapporteur Axel Voss proposed a Article 13 compromise
not worthy of this name. [3] Although the upload filtering technology is
not explicitly mentioned, this version would ask online platforms to
prevent the availability of copyright infringing works (i.e. before they
even appear), meaning that every new upload would have to be checked before
it goes live. Apart from public criticism [4] and disagreement for a
number of political groups, this also sparked ridicule. [5]
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Campaign in Bulgaria: As the handling of the Bulgarian Presidency of this
file is currently pivotal, an Article 13 campaign was kicked off in Sofia
last week [6] with a press conference. [7] The Wikimedians of Bulgaria UG,
a local digital rights organisation, the National Library, a photo forum
and a law repository platform are among the supporting organisations. Next
steps are media participations, an event in Sofia that will discuss the
technical aspects of upload filters on 23 March and a public discussion
between the campaign's supporters and the collecting societies.
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Campaign in Germany: Meanwhile in Germany, the EU country with the greatest
voting power, Wikimedia Deutschland, the Federation of German Consumer
Organisations, Bitkom (Germany’s digital business association) and many
others came out with an open letter against upload filters today. [8][9]
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Campaign in Austria: Wikimedia Austria has already positioned itself
publicly against the upload filters for UGC sites. [10] As the civil rights
groups and digital organisations in Vienna are preparing for the Austrian
Presidency of the Council of the EU, we can expect more events and public
statements later this year.
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Copyright Reform - Education & Cultural Heritage
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Education Exception: The discussions among the rapporteur and the shadow
rapporteurs in the Parliament seem to be progressing. We are getting
signals that a good compromise has been made in order to allow this
exception to be valid independent of venue. A “non-commercial” restriction
is, however, almost certainly going to be kept.
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Cultural Heritage Digitisation: Article 5 of the copyright reform aims to
improve the preservation of cultural heritage of which digitisation is a
main part. We have explained to all the advisors and MEPs working on this
that Wikimedia is involved in GLAM digitisation collaborations and
safeguarding the public domain would remove a major risk factor. There is
understanding of our plea across political groups but the exact text of the
compromise is still being puzzled together. Ideally, we would like to see a
“no new copyright or related rights on faithful reproductions of works with
expired copyright” sentence in there.
=========
Tackling Illegal Content Online
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Tomorrow morning the European Commission will present its Recommendation on
Measures to Effectively Tackle Illegal Content Online. A few weeks ago a
draft version of the document was leaked, so we will be able to compare and
see the last minute changes. [11] In September 2017, the European
Commission already published a set of guidelines pushing online platforms
to “voluntarily” install automated filtering. [12] Wikimedia is very
critical of this approach for exactly the same reasons we oppose Article
13. It seems dishonest of the Commission to be pushing platforms into
implementing such a technology "voluntarily" while a legislation containing
this measure is being deliberated.
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Wikimedia and the “Fake News” Debate
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The public policy discussions about “fake news”, or, better said, the
spread of disinformation will continue for the foreseeable future. As
Wikipedia is a top site and we do seem to understand ourselves as the
knowledge&facts folks [13], we are expected to be part of it. We are
members of the EU’s High Level Expert Group on Fake News [14] and have been
receiving invitations to speak on this subject. [15] This being said, it
would be great to come together as a community and talk about this and we
believe could or should be done in more detail. The policy team is planning
a relevant submission to Wikimania. Perhaps we can also touch upon the
topic during this year’s Big Fat Brussels Meeting (date in April to be
announced in the coming days). In the meanwhile a mailing list discussion
could outline the major issues.
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[1]http://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-5902-2018-INIT/en/pdf
[2]
http://copybuzz.com/copyright/bulgarian-presidency-worse-than-estonian-on-o…
[3]
https://juliareda.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/20180221-Draft-CA-on-Articl…
[4]
https://www.communia-association.org/2018/02/23/mep-voss-sells-freedom-expr…
[5]http://whatthevoss.eu/
[6]http://article13.bg/
[7]
https://www.investor.bg/web/456/a/startira-kampaniia-spri-robopoliciiata-sr…
[8]
https://www.vzbv.de/sites/default/files/downloads/2018/02/27/20180228_offen…
[9]https://twitter.com/WikimediaDE/status/968810691590262786
[10]
https://futurezone.at/netzpolitik/mit-upload-filtern-funktioniert-wikipedia…
[11]
https://edri.org/files/illegal_content_ec_draft_recommendation_201802.pdf
[12]
https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/communication-tackling-i…
[13]
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/07/17/misinformation-fake-news-censorship/
[14]
https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/experts-appointed-high-l…
[15]https://twitter.com/Wikimedia/status/875704749810733056
Hello All,
Last month, the Wikimedia Foundation joined the Electronic Frontier
Foundation <https://www.eff.org/> and the Organization for Transformative
Works <http://www.transformativeworks.org/> in signing an amicus brief
<https://www.eff.org/files/2018/01/25/eff_otw_and_wikimedia_foundation_amicu…>
in the case of de Havilland v. FX
<https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/10/courtroom-feud-leaves-accurate-speech…>.
This case, currently before the California Court of Appeal, has the
potential to be very consequential for free expression and First Amendment
rights.
This case arises from a dispute over rights of publicity
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights> relating to the
docudrama series Feud: Bette and Joan, which was produced by the US cable
channel FX. The docudrama is a dramatic interpretation of the famous feud
between actresses Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. Olivia de Havilland is an
actress who is portrayed in the docudrama by actress Catherine Zeta-Jones.
De Havilland sued FX, claiming that they did not ask her permission before
portraying her in the series, and also making arguments about elements of
the portrayal.
The initial ruling in this case sets a disturbing precedent; essentially,
the court found that de Havilland is entitled to damages from FX because
she does not agree with the accuracy of her portrayal in the docudrama.
This decision could have serious negative implications for any portrayal or
depiction of a person that is even mildly critical. This could include a
Wikipedia page on living persons, or other fact-based works. This could
also chill expression on smaller projects that do not have the resources to
defend themselves against litigation, such as independent films or
publishing websites.
Free expression, and the right to discuss information about historical
figures and notable people, is fundamental to the dissemination of free
knowledge. By joining this amicus brief, we are adding our voice to the
defense of that right for all creators, big or small.
Best,
Jan
==
Jan Gerlach
Public Policy Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
1 New Montgomery Street, Suite 1600
San Francisco, CA 94104
jgerlach(a)wikimedia.org
@pd_w <https://twitter.com/pd_w>
@wikimediapolicy <https://twitter.com/wikimediapolicy>