Hi all,
I am really glad to announce that Communia (the European association
uniting Wikimedia, Creative Commons, OKFN et al.) has today released
<https://www.communia-association.org/2019/12/02/guidelines-implementation-d…>its
guidelines for the implementation of the DSM (a.k.a. Copyright) Directive.
These guidelines are intended to be of help to local advocates and national
policy makers while transposing the directive into national law. The
overall policy stance it to exand and strengthen user rights and access to
cultural heritage, even beyond what is strictly adopted within the European
law. They are part of a wider implementation project by COMMUNIA and its
members Centrum Cyfrowe <https://centrumcyfrowe.pl/> and Wikimedia
<https://www.wikimedia.org/> to make sure that local communities in as many
countries as possible participate in their national copyright reforms.
Even better, we partnered with LIBER <https://libereurope.eu/> (Articles 3
and 4), IFLA <https://www.ifla.org/> (Article 6) and Europeana
<https://pro.europeana.eu/> (Articles 8 to 11) to create these guidelines.
Numerous experts were involved in the tedious process of interpreting the
Copyright Directive and providing guidance on how to shape national rules
in a way that benefits users and the public interest. It was not always
easy to make sense of this piece of legislation. So, we are very thankful
for all their time and patience.
Please:
-
Read the guidelines here
<https://www.notion.so/Guidelines-for-the-Implementation-of-the-DSM-Directiv…>
-
Send us feedback: We are very much seeing these guidelines as living
documents that can be improved based on feedback or external developments
in the implementation process. You can send your feedback via email to
transposition(a)communia-association.org or by commenting directly on the
wiki-style platform “notion” that we are using to publish the guidelines
(you need to be logged into notion and you can make a free account here:
https://www.notion.so/login).
-
Endorse the entire guidelines or individual guides: if you are part of
an organization that would like to endorse the guidelines, send us an email
transposition(a)communia-association.org
NB: Notion was chosen instead of one of our wikis because of the improved
UI/usability and design. And, frankly, we wanted to test another service
based on Wiki software in order to be able to compare.
Cheers,
Dimi
Salut la liste!
*tl;dr*
Your monthly Brussels beat comes with a new Commission finally in office, a
terrorist content regulation inching its way along the legislative path and
an Article 17 Stakeholder Dialogue that doesn’t discuss Article 17.
This and previous reports on Meta-Wiki:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Monitor
======
NEW COMMISSION
Ursula von der Leyen and her fellow members of the Commission finally (and
literally [1]) moved into the Berlaymont.
---
The new college got 461 votes which bests the 2014 Juncker Commission vote.
It is also better than von der Leyen’s own confirmation result back in
July. [2]
---
More importantly, the three largest groups - EPP, S&D and Renew Europe
(ex-liberals) squarely supported the new Commission. The Greens, originally
well placed to exert influence seem to have successfully maneuvered
themselves to the sidelines at this stage. [3] Still, European Parliament
majorities are floating and voting discipline among groups is regularly
nominal, so we expect ECR (right-wing conservatives) and Greens to play
kingmakers every now and then.
---
NB: True to Brussels tradition the new Commission’s first very visible
action was to put up a new banner [4]. Doesn’t hurt but… well… not exactly plus
ambitieux either.
======
SECOND TERRORIST CONTENT TRILOGUE: MEPs, the EU Council and the Commission
met to talk about the controversial terrorist content proposal. No one was
ready to budge.
---
The European Commission maintains that the definitions of what terrorist
content is are clear and that this acts as a safeguard against overblocking
other speech. The European Parliament maintains that referrals and
proactive measures are a no-go. One technical meeting is planned on 9
December and two trilogues will take place on 5 and 15 December,
respectively. Busy times ahead for anyone following this.
=====
ART. 17 STAKEHOLDER DIALOGUE
The third meeting on the implementation of the Copyright Directive’s
Article 17 took place last Monday. In case your memory is rusty, the
Commission is mandated by law to come up with guidelines for Member States
on how to ensure that mass filtering of user content online doesn’t lead to
mass filtering of user content online [5]. Squaring that circle has always
been a headache. Now it became apparent that even state of the art
technology can’t offer a way out.
---
Three content identification technology providers presented (pitched) their
solutions (products) - YouTube’s infamous ContentID, Videntifier and PEX
[6].
---
Main takeaway: None of the presented technologies do more than simply
matching content. None of them can analyse the use of copyrighted work
within specific contexts. Which means that they cannot detect if a specific
use is covered by an exception. This, in turn, means that the current
technology on offer does not meet the requirements for filtering as
established by the directive itself.
======
OUR VERY OWN IMPLEMENTATION GUIDELINES
While the Commission is straddling, we are is thrilled to release our
“Guidelines for the Implementation of the DSM Directive”:
https://www.notion.so/DSM-implementation-portal-97518afab71247cfa27f0ddeee7…
---
Wikimedia, Communia, Creative Commons and Centrum Cyfrowe partnered with
LIBER (European Research Libraries, Articles 3 and 4), IFLA (International
Library Association, Article 6) and Europeana (Articles 8 to 11) to create
these guidelines. The goal is to make sure that local communities in as
many Member States as possible participate in their national legislative
processes.
======
WHAT ELSE MATTERS
---
ePrivacy: The Finnish Presidency did not manage to secure a so-called
“general approach” for the regulation in Council. [7] With trilogues
hopelessly deadlocked the new Commission will have to chose on whether to
keep pushing and plowing. It could also drop the legislation or go back to
square one with a new and completely revised proposal.
---
Artificial Intelligence: The European Union wants to become the first world
region to pass laws for artificial intelligence. President von der Leyen
self-imposed 100-days clock to achieve this started ticking today.
Expectedly consumer groups are ramping up pressure for hard rules. [8] On
the other side, some officials are playing down expectations, still divided
over whether the rules should be actual law or light-touch guidelines
---
French Hate Speech Law: The European Commission slammed France’s project
for a hate speech law (“Loi Avia”). Brussels criticised Paris on the fact
that the draft legislation is not fully compliant with the 2000 E-Commerce
Directive, which gives platforms liability protections now to be taken
away. The French law asks platforms to self-police their content and remove
hate speech within 24 hours. [10] Brussels is currently preparing a major
overhaul of the EU’s intermediary protection rules.
---
UNESCO Recommendation on Open Educational Resources was adopted by its 195
member states. Concretely, the UNESCO OER Recommendation has five
objectives: (i) Building capacity of stakeholders to create access, use,
adapt and redistribute OER; (ii) Developing supportive policy; (iii)
Encouraging inclusive and equitable quality OER; (iv) Nurturing the
creation of sustainability models for OER; and (v) Facilitating
international cooperation. [11][12]
======
[1]https://twitter.com/vonderleyen/status/1201090376221769729
[2]
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20191121IPR67111/parliame…
[3]
https://www.politico.eu/article/greens-european-parliament-take-risk-with-d…
[4]https://twitter.com/KarolineBeisel/status/1201136364605063177?s=20
[5]
https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/third-meeting-stakeholde…
[6]https://twitter.com/Pex
[7]
https://www.parlament.gv.at/PAKT/EU/XXVII/EU/00/46/EU_04609/imfname_1094338…
[8]
https://www.beuc.eu/publications/beuc-x-2019-076_telecoms_council_meeting_o…
[9]
https://www.nextinpact.com/news/108442-loi-avia-contre-cyberhaine-critiques…
[10]
https://en.unesco.org/news/unesco-recommendation-open-educational-resources…
[11]
https://open-educational-resources.de/wp-content/uploads/Draft-Recommendati…