Thanks as always for these, Dimi. They're informative and interesting for
me, even though (especially because?) I have very little time to follow the
issues these days!
Luis
On Mon, Oct 2, 2017 at 12:08 AM Dimitar Parvanov Dimitrov <
dimitar.parvanov.dimitrov(a)gmail.com> wrote:
tl;dr
The crucial committee vote on copyright has been postponed giving us
several extra months to prepare. The Member States are discussing a common
position in the Council and some of them are worrying about fundamental
rights.
This and past reports:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Monitor
===
EU Copyright Reform
---
New timeline: The lead Legal Affairs committee (JURI) will not be able to
keep its original timeline on copyright reform. The crucial vote on
copyright is now most likely to happen end of November or even December.
Also, the last opinion giving committee, Civil Liberties (LIBE), is not
likely to be ready to vote its copyright report this week in Strasbourg. [1]
---
Our negative agenda: We are looking at a dynamic that makes it seem less
likely that we will see a full-blown ancillary copyright approved in the
Parliament. Still, this so-called press publishers right has been coming
back from the death so many times that I wouldn’t write it off completely.
On the other hand, we still have an Article 13 that will be part of the
final text for sure. Our efforts on this must concentrate around the top
goal of not to letting upload filtering for UGC sites become an obligation.
We are also trying to keep the liability protections laid out by the
E-Commerce Directive intact, although a majority seems set on cutting them
down.
---
Our positive agenda: We are trying to give Freedom of Panorama a new spin
by bringing in the Augmented Reality industry on board. [2] Th next big
step would be to convince a car maker that already invests in AR technology
to make a few phone calls. The education exception is still to be discussed
and we are hoping to broaden its scope. There has been some considerable
support piling up in favour of a broad text and data mining exception,
including academia and start-ups. [3][4] The preservation & public domain
article is so far flying under the radar and still needs to be discussed by
the rapporteur and shadows.
---
The Council: The discussions between the Member States have been very
much centred around ancillary copyright (Article 11) and upload
filtering/intermediary liability (Article 13). As of today, we can confirm
that 16 Member States voiced opposition to a new press publishers right,
preferring some sort of legal “presumption for publishers” (Option B on
Article 11 in Estonian Presidency compromises [5]). The more worrying news
is that many countries seem to be giving up support on Article 11 in order
to get what they want out of Article 13. Hence, the discussion on Article
13 seems much more tedious. Both options presented by the Estonian
Presidency are shrinking the E-Commerce Directive’s liability protections.
It is furthermore completely unclear how user-generated platforms are to
keep any infringing content from appearing on their sites without general
monitoring. Such general monitoring obligations, however, have been
declared illegal by the Court of Justice of the EU. [6] This has lead six
Member States (Belgium, Czechia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland and the
Netherlands) to ask the legal services of the Council whether the Article
is compatible with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU. [7] Later
it also became clear that Germany has asked its own questions [8] and that
Poland has voiced criticism along the same lines.
===
AVMSD: Long form: Audiovisual Media Services Directive. The European
Union has decided that it wants at least some of the rules that apply to
traditional broadcasters (advertising, cultural quotas, age
classifications) to also apply to online video platforms like YouTube,
iTunes and Netflix. There is currently a big discussion on whether
video-sharing platforms should be included. The issue for us is that
Commons could very well fall under this definition. We are now in a very
intransparent phase of the process called a trialogue. This is when
Commission, Parliament and Council meet to hammer out wordings and
compromises in all-night sessions that are not open to the public. Our best
chance of getting something moving in our direction is the Council, where
“blocking minority” could carve out some limitations. Further reading: [9]
===
Digital Contracts: We are currently discussing some rules regarding
“digital contracts” in the EU. [10] The EU legislator declared itself
worried about the so-called “click-through" agreements that we all click
through online. These are supposed to become safer and more understandable
for citizens by means of a Directive. We are now in the stage where the
compromises are being discussed in the European Parliament committees. What
would be a win for us is if a safeguard that makes sure exceptions and
limitations cannot be overridden by licensing agreements is included.
===
Data Driven Economy: We have been participating in a number of
consultations regarding the “data driven economy” recently. Our goal is to
push the Commission away from its idea of establishing a new “data
producers right” and towards the idea of scrapping the sui generis database
right. A synopsis of the responses to the first consultation came out. [11]
The good news is that “most respondents do not support regulatory
intervention, be it by creating ownership-type rights or by licensing
obligations. 68% of 284 respondents to the question clearly support the
increased use of APIs, and around a half state that, in some cases,
providing non-binding guidance and sharing best practices could help.”
===
PSI Directive: As a last and final (tbc) consultation before the “data
economy” package is propose, the Commission is asking us for our opinion on
the Public Sector Information Directive. [12] We, among other
organisations, have already given the Commission our thoughts on this a few
years back, which were mostly welcomed and included in non-binding
implementation guidelines. [13] We will now basically take the position
that we want these guidelines to become mandatory.
===
[1]
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/popups/ficheprocedure.do?reference=2016/…
[
2]https://twitter.com/SCSsoftware/status/912974257415770112
[
3]http://sparceurope.org/copyrightreform/
[
4]https://twitter.com/Ansip_EU/status/788436558651219968
[5]
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2017/aug/eu-council-copyright-directive-esto…
[6]
http://www.iptegrity.com/index.php/internet-trials/720-sabam-v-scarlet-cour…
[
7]http://statewatch.org/news/2017/sep/eu-copyright-ms-questions.htm
[8]
http://statewatch.org/news/2017/sep/eu-council-copyright-directive-german-q…
[
9]https://edri.org/avmsd-reform-document-pool/
[10]
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/popups/ficheprocedure.do?reference=2015/…
[11]
https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/synopsis-report-public-c…
[12]
https://ec.europa.eu/info/consultations/public-consultation-review-directiv…
[13]
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=uriserv:OJ.C_.2014.240.0…
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