Publicpolicy March 2019

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EU Policy Monitoring Report - March
by Dimitar Parvanov Dimitrov 29 Mar '19

29 Mar '19

tl;dr The EU copyright reform ends the way it started: absurdly. We need to look at national transpositions now. This and previous reports on Meta: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Monitor ====== Copyright ====== The plenary vote on the results of the trilogue negotiations [1] happened this week in Strasbourg. The vote on whether to accept amendment proposals to the text was rejected by a very slim majority of 5 (312-317). The package was then adopted with 348 to 274 votes. Roll call votes are points 22. and 23 in the official plenary voting document: [2]. --- Confusion? It probably fits the absurdity of the entire reform process and, more specifically, the surrounding debate that now 18 MEPs have changed their votes post factum (bottom of page 51 in the same document) claiming they pressed the wrong button.[3] With the corrected records there is actually a majority for amendments. These changes, however, are only for the record and don’t change the official result. --- Voting Analysis by Country Thanks to WMCZ we have a breakdown of what percentage of MEPs supported the reform by country: https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/proc --- Contents There will be a new liability regime for for-profit online platforms allowing users to upload content. They will have to make “best efforts” to get licenses from any and all right holders while also having to make “in accordance with high industry standards [...] best efforts to ensure unavailability” of specific content. Else, they will be directly liable for user uploaded content. [Article 17] Weirdly, the platform that seems to already comply with these new rules is YouTube. --- There is a new related right for press publications not older than two years. One will need to get a license to show parts of them, except for “very short extracts”. Either Member States or the courts will have to define what a very short extract is. Hyperlinks are explicitly allowed. --- On the positive side we have received a comprehensive text and data mining exception establishing the “right to read is right to mine” as a default, a public domain safeguard that will solve issues such as the “Reiss Engelhorn Case”, and museums will be allowed to digitise and show “out-of-commerce” works on their websites. --- Poisonous public debate Articles 11 and 13 (old numbering) are looking backwards trying to protect already established dissemination industries. We believe they will hurt the opportunities of knowledge sharing provided by the internet. It is, of course, also possible that they won’t be as consequential as we and many others fear. But what is extremely worrying is the way this debate was lead. There are always people who can’t behave, on both sides. But here any opposition to these articles was, by official right holder representatives, established politicians and mainstream media painted as “fake news” and the criticism was denied legitimacy. One of Germany’s leading newspaper cover page welcomed the vote by saying that “democracy had won” and again questioning the legitimacy of the critics.[4] We, as a prominent opponent of the reform, have been and will continue to be on the receiving end of this. We don’t need to answer to all the trolls out there, but leaving such accusations of “oppositions controlled & paid by corporations” unchallenged is also a threat. --- Next steps Member States will have 24 months to transpose this Directive into national law from the date of publication in the Official Journal of the EU (OJ). We are going to analyse in detail the discretion it allows Member States and the opportunities and risks this entails. We will then provide a document suite and work with local communities to ensure we provide input into the reform process nationally. One simple example of such flexibility would be that the new Directive provides for a mandatory parody exception within Article 13 (so only within for-profit online platforms). Not all Member States have a general parody exception, as in the Information Society Directive it is only an optional one. This means that the countries currently not having one have the choice to create a broad or a narrow one. ====== TERREG ====== The debate over a possible compromise at LIBE, the leading committee on the terrorist content dossier, is quite intense with new versions coming out sometimes twice a week. In an unexpected twist of events, the Compromise from March 28 envisions deletion of dangerous referrals and turning proactive measures into specific measures that could be, for example, regular reporting or increasing human oversight. These changes mitigate the most serious flaws of the Commission’s proposal. The vote is planned on April 2nd so given the intensity of exchange at LIBE it remains to be seen if these developments will be sustained. Fingers crossed! We need good news after the copyright vote flop, dear MEPs! ====== Elections ====== The European Parliament elections are on the 25-26 May. We are expecting a huge tunover and more than half of the new MEPs to be newly elected. This means more work, but also more opportunities. Reaching out to promising candidates ahead of election is usually a good way to build a relationship. ====== BIG FAT BRUSSELS MEETING ====== Building on the elections, this year’s Big Fat Brussels Meeting will be on 1-2 June, the weekend after. We will do “post mortem” analysis of our campaign (what worked well, what did we miss, what should have been handled differently), will be setting up our transposition work and will be making plans of how to reach out the newly elected MEPs. If you want to attend, please signal your interest on the provisional Meta-Wiki page: [5] ====== Absurdity of the Month ====== We should not forget our sense of humour. I am therefore sharing with you a piece of absurd copyright news from my home country, Bulgaria. Press release is in Bulgarian, [6] so I will decipher. Last year German photographer Nico Trinkhaus was in Sofia and put the images he took up on his website. [7] These were then used, without getting a license, by several Bulgarian travel agencies. The photographer successfully sued them in the Sofia City Court (first instance). The rulings were then, little surprisingly, upheld by the Court of Appeal. Instead of admitting fault, the travel agencies got themselves new lawyers, send around a press release and organised a press conference interpreting the Bulgarian copyright act in a way that lets them claim that photos taken in an urban environment are NOT (sic!) subject to copyright. They go on saying that they will send complaints the Bulgarian Ombudsperson and European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. You might, of course, ask yourselves now what the Ombudsperson and the ECHR have to do with a pretty straightforward copyright violation. The answer is, of course, nothing. But these travel agencies are real crusaders for an extreme version of Freedom of Panorama. And we have a copyright reform coming up in all EU countries and plan to suggest FoP in many. I will surely keep this example in by back pocket if someone ever calls us extremist again. ====== [1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/A-8-2018-0245-AM-271-271_EN.p… [2] http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+PV+2019… [3] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/mar/27/mep-errors-mean-european-copy… [4] https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/medien/urheberrecht-europaparlament-… [5]https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Big_Fat_Brussels_Meeting_VI [6] https://www.iusauthor.com/novini/376-%D1%8E%D1%81%D0%B0%D1%83%D1%82%D0%BE%D… [7]https://sumfinity.com/?s=sofia

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Vote on copyright in a few hours
by Dimitar Parvanov Dimitrov 27 Mar '19

27 Mar '19

Hello all, Today after 12:30 we expect the European Parliament in Strasbourg to vote on the copyright file. First there will be a vote on whether to allow amendments or just vote the entire package as is. Only if there is a majority for that will votes on deleting Articles 11 and 13 be allowed. I am attaching a voting list with recommendations on Article 13, so you can follow the vote. Stream is here: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/website/webstreaming.html?event=20190326-0900… What happens if the reform is passed as is: The Council will nod this off at a General Council meeting on 9 April. Then it will be published in the official journal and Member States will have 24 months to transpose the new rules. In this case we will work on national implementations. There is a lot we can to remedy *some* of the effects of Article 13 & open the door to future litigation. We can also widen the gains some of the exceptions provide at least nationally. What happen is the European Parliament amends the reform: The entire text goes to Council and then the Member States governments need to decide if they accept it as is or want to further amend it and negotiate with the EP. In this case we focus on the EP elections, as a move before them would be unlikely. Very hypothetical: If a country, such as Germany for instance, suddenly changes its behaviour on 9 April, it could theoretically still stop the package. But copyright is already agreed upon in Council and put down as an "A item" for the 9 April meeting. A items are considered purely procedural, get nodded off and not even discussed (as agreement and a vote have already taken place). There is only one time, to my knowledge, that such an A item was pulled back. The Software Patents Directive. I think it is extremely unlikely to happen again. Thanks everyone for you help and support. Cheers from Strasbourg, Dimi

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Explainer video on Article 13 of the new EU Copyright Directive
by Jan Gerlach 21 Mar '19

21 Mar '19

Hi everyone We've produced an explainer video on Article 13. It's here: https://twitter.com/Wikipedia/status/1108595296068501504 https://facebook.com/watch/?v=2627555900619451 Please help us share it widely! Best, Jan

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Four language Wikipedias to black out tomorrow, March 21
by Joseph Seddon 20 Mar '19

20 Mar '19

Hello everyone, As you’ve likely heard, four language Wikipedias will black out tomorrow, March 21, in opposition to the current version of the EU Copyright Directive. [1] The Czech, Danish, German and Slovak Wikipedias will display a non-dismissible blackout overlay and block access to content for 24 hours. These communities will be utilizing similar texts and designs for their blackouts. [2][3][4][5] In addition to these communities, there are others discussing the possibility of a banner and/or a blackout. Discussions and voting appear to be actively occurring on Estonian, French and Italian Wikipedias whilst other community conversations have either stalled or gone quiet. The final vote on the Directive is expected to take place on Tuesday, March 26. This means that communities looking to make an impact on the outcome of the vote will need to make decisions surrounding community actions, by the latest, the evening of Sunday March 24. There is a good deal of coordination and technical work that goes into these initiatives. In order for us to best support communities in the implementation of their decision, we want to encourage interested communities to come to a decision, whether for or against, and reach out to us as soon as possible. Thanks, Seddon [1] https://wikimediafoundation.org/2019/03/20/four-wikipedias-to-black-out-ove… [2] Czech/Danish blackout: https://cs.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=NASA&banner=EU_Blackout_2019&use… [3] Czech banner: https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Trademark/Request_a_license_fo… [4] German blackout: https://de.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=NASA&banner=EU_Blackout_2019_d… [5] Slovak blackout: https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fundraising_2011/Jimmy_Letter_…

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some useful data about societal reception of the copyright reform
by Anna Mazgal 20 Mar '19

20 Mar '19

Hi, just to let you know that in Poland a market research agency dropped some questions regarding copyright reform into their polling and these are the key findings that may be useful also outside Poland to demonstrate people are interested and have an opinion about the issue: * 79% of respondents that know about the reform believe that the new law would limit access to information online (17% does not see such a danger) * 75% believe that it will limit the freedom of speech, also through the filtering obligation (16% has the opposite opinion) * 85% of respondents believe the EP should consider users' rights and freedom of speech protection when carrying out works on the copyright reform * 73% believe the measures have not been adequately consulted with all interested groups and only 5% believe they were adequately communicated to the public Best, Anna -- Anna Mazgal EU Policy Advisor Wikimedia anna(a)wikimedia.be @a2na mobile: +32 487 222 945 51 Rue du Trône BE-1050 Brussels

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Supporting community actions relating to the EU Copyright Direction
by Joseph Seddon 16 Mar '19

16 Mar '19

Hello all, As you are aware, the German community has voted in favor of a blackout of German Wikipedia. The blackout is set to take place on March 21st. We have been working closely with the German community to develop a strategy to best support the implementation of this decision. We are currently fine-tuning the text and design for the blackout to ensure the messaging is clear and accurate. A number of other communities are in active discussions some of which appear to be expressing consensus in favor of a banner, a blackout, or a combination of the two. We want to ensure materials including, banners and blackouts are easily accessible and adaptable for use on all languages in the com Those materials we are preparing will be ready in the next few days, but we’d like to take this opportunity to contextualize them by outlining our approach. Our materials aim to do the following: - *Avoid invoking party politics. - *We want the campaign to be clearly and unequivocally about the Directive text, not about particular parties or candidates. We will also avoid linking to any campaigns that encourage the support or opposition of specific candidates - *Focus on the issues.* - We will hone in on the particular articles in the Directive that are causing problems with the text, specifically Articles 11 and 13. - *Contain our own neutral material. *We believe it's imperative to have airtight arguments and intentional framing. While other sites have great initiatives underway, we cannot ensure that external content will remain consistent with our message. - *Have a uniform call to action.* Where we link to content, we will link to fixcopyright.wikimedia.org, which will when updated direct users to contact their MEPs through the European Parliament's website, We believe concerted action will have more effect than disperse, uncoordinated action between communities. - *Communicate in a concise, direct and factual style*, so as to avoid confusing our message. Please distribute this message to your communities as you see fit. We would like the communities voting in favor of an action to know that we are working on the tools and messaging to support their decision. Feel free to contact myself if you have any questions about the implementation of on wiki community actions. Many thanks! Seddon [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meinungsbilder/Protest_gegen_EU-Urh…

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EU Policy Monitoring Report - February
by Dimitar Parvanov Dimitrov 01 Mar '19

01 Mar '19

tl;dr This month we have a two-issues report for you: The final vote on copyright is three weeks away and the Terrorism Regulation will be voted on by two out of three responsible committees on Monday. This and previous reports on Meta: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Monitor Copyright The Legal Affairs Committee passed the copyright reform text that was negotiated with the Council last Tuesday in a 16-9 vote. [1] While the majority in favour seems bone-crushing, this does not automatically translate to the plenary vote. At the very least, in this lead committee the French MEPs, who favour the text in huge numbers, are heavily overrepresented.[2] The final, plenary vote is now planned for 26 March in Strasbourg. Wikimedia published its final voting recommendation in a blog post. [3] There we repeat that, despite certain carve-outs for our projects, a public domain safeguard and a good text and data mining exception, the two central articles of this reform aim at restricting information online. They would have consequences for the free knowledge ecosystem, which for us means that we cannot support the reform as is. Feel free to share and translate. Katherine Maher is coming to Brussels early next week on the back of a meeting of the Transatlantic High Level Working Group on Content Moderation Online and Freedom of Expression. [4] When here, she will be meeting with a number of MEPs and hosting a dinner with journalists and rightsholder representatives. There are a several campaigns getting traction. Most notably savetheinternet.info and pledge2019.eu. Wikimedia and its affiliates do not carry these as organisations, because we believe we can be most helpful as an additional voice in the debate. Individuals, however, may of course very well use the tools to get in touch with law makers. Talking to many of our chapters and user-groups from across the continent (an exercise that is continuing this and next week), most seem to be focussing on participating in events organised by like-minded organisations or co-signing positions to be sent to MEPs. Almost all will contact MEPs they have already been in touch with (making sure the converted stay converted) and some are trying to get celebrities (online or not) to support our position, as this is something rightsholders have been very efficient at. If you find a moment, please share what you are doing on Meta-Wiki. [5] TERREG The work on the Terrorist Content Regulation proposal [6] has sped up, with the LIBE Rapporteur MEP Dalton (ECR, UK) determined to have a vote on Committee Report on 21 March followed by a plenary vote (first reading) either 25-28 March or 15-18 April. All committees have published their draft reports and opinions (Civil Liberties - report, Culture - opinion, Internal Market - opinion) and now deliberate on the amendments. On the Internal Market Committee we generally hope the draft opinion by MEP Julia Reda, who did a great job removing all the questionable provisions, will not be watered down. On the Culture Committee we are hoping the draft opinion MEP Julie Ward’s can be improved by removing referrals. Both opinion giving committees will have their votes on 4 March. The lead committee still has some time to discuss the text, which is beneficial considering that rapporteur Dalton’s text left a lot to wish for. [7] Further reading: [8] ====== [1]https://twitter.com/EP_Legal/status/1100396346639609856 [2]https://twitter.com/AClorrain/status/1100434160634671104 [3] https://wikimediafoundation.org/2019/02/28/we-do-not-support-the-eu-copyrig… [4]https://www.ivir.nl/twg/ [5] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Copyright_2019#Ideas_for_Actions_… [6] https://oeil.secure.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/popups/ficheprocedure.do?refere… [7] http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+COMPARL… [8]https://edri.org/tag/terreg/

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Publicpolicy March 2019