Wikimedia and the EU
January 2015 Report
tl;dr
While the Commission is quietly and sometimes reluctantly drafting a copyright reform proposal, the European Parliament is in the middle of trying to find its position on the matter by writing an own-initiative report
This and past reports: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Monitor
ToC
1. EP Report on the Implementation of the 2001 InfoSoc Directive
2. Intergroup on the Digital Agenda and Positions of the Commission
3. Parliamentary Question on PDGov
4. WIPO Broadcast Treaty
-----------------
-----------------
#copyright #EP #fixcopyright
1.EP Report on the Implementation of the 2001 InfoSoc Directive
Why is this relevant?
The Information Society Directive from 2001 is the current piece of legislation that contains an exception that we would call Freedom of Panorama. This exception is currently optional for Member States to implement, leading to many legal uncertainties about what is allowed.
European Parliament own-initiative reports are non-binding, yet they do show us what is likely to find a majority and pass. More importantly, since the European Commission is currently occupied with drafting the actual reform proposal, they are surely keeping an eye on the Parliament to see what is acceptable and what is simply not feasible at this point.
An own-initiative report goes through the same parliamentary stages as a legislative proposal would - draft by rapporteur, committee hearings, amendments, plenary vote - so that this might be seen as a test run for the real thing.
What happened?
The European Parliament Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) appointed Julia Reda (Pirate Party, Greens/EFA Group, DE) to be the rapporteur on this document. As such, she wrote and presented her draft report to the rest of the Committee on 20 March. [1]
This first version proposes harmonising the copyright rules acrossEU Member States and shortening copyright terms to what is permissible under the Berne treaty (i.e. life plus 50). It proposes extending the quotation right to cover audiovisual works; introducing an open norm in Europe to mimic the US fair use practice; enshrining the legality of hyperlinking and text & data mining; wider exceptions for education and research; as well as allowing libraries to lend e-books. The document also proposes a full Freedom of Panorama exception, talks about the copyright status of government works and calls the legislator to take steps to protect the public domain from copyfraud. Interestingly, the text also makes a connection between copyright and freedom of expression, an aspect that has been absent from the Brussels copyright debate so far.
The reactions to the report have been very mixed. From “this is the end of the world as we know it” over “balanced” to “merely a simple patch that doesn’t change anything”. [2] Naturally digital rights groups and technology companies see a lot of good in it [3] while rightsholders and publishers are very sceptical. [4] It will be crucial to the entire debate that this report is seen to be somewhere in the middle rather than at the extreme end.
What comes next?
Expectations are that the report will undergo major changes. Members of the European Parliament can propose amendments to the text until 17 February which will then be discussed in Committee the week after. The final vote in plenary will be sometime before summer, probably in May.
As we are expecting considerable pressure on this proposal, it is currently important to talk to decision-makers and try to explain our issues and why solving them shouldn’t be controversial. [5]
-----------------
-----------------
#digitalagenda #VPAnsip #DSM
2. Intergroup on the Digital Agenda and Positions of the Commission
Why is this relevant?
This is the publicly visible part of the debate surrounding the motions to reform copyright. An intergroup is a working group of Members of the European Parliament on a topic that does not have its own committee. Since it has no defined legal role to play, it can be much more open and serve as a platform for cross-party cooperation on the given topic.
What happened?
The Intergroup on the Digital Agenda was launched last week [6] gathering some 80 MEPs.[7] At the launch event Andrus Ansip, Vice-President of the Commission responsible for the Digital Single Market, talked about the importance to update copyright legislation focusing on harmonisation and cross-border access, similar to speeches he held before that. [8] For an EU that is very much focused on the single market “there are so many national exceptions, differences and limitations that the system is not workable”, Ansip said. This confirms, at least partly, our strategy to point out legal uncertainties across different legislations when it comes to Freedom of Panorama.
What comes next?
Since copyright will be controversial and span across many committees, expectations are that a lot of the way to a lot of deals will be paved within this group.
Meanwhile, Commissioner Oettinger’s cabinet (the ones heading the DG actually writing the reform text) is planning on staging several small-circle stakeholder meetings mainly targeted at the industry, but we’re trying to get Wikimedia represented. On the Commission side it will be important to give them the feeling that Freedom of Panorama is something people care about and that isn’t going away on its own.
-----------------
-----------------
#PDGov
3. Parliamentary Question on PDGov
Why is this relevant?
One of the goals of Wikimedia in Brussels is to incentivise change that would make sure content produced by EU institutions is public domain or freely licensed. [9] Regarding this, the European Commission has introduced re-use rules for its own content that basically fulfill the CC-BY requirements. The problem is that this applies only to the Commission (not to the European Parliament and Council) and even there every unit makes use of the right to come up with its own rules.
A written question is a formal way for a Member of the European Parliament to ask the European Commission a public question and to point their attention to a certain issue.
What happened?
Julia Reda (Pirate Party, Greens/EFA Group, DE) has deposited a written question to the Commission [10] asking whether it actually even tries to control and enforce the copyright on its works and what resources are dedicated to this. The logic behind the questions seems to be that if the Commission does not care enough to protect its copyright, it could just as well grant a general re-use permission.
What comes next?
Next to Freedom of Panorama we’re always making sure to mention the issue of copyright status of government works. The Commission units and cabinets seem to be interested in this issue, although it is not apparent how to most-efficiently solve it. Even given complete political will, it is unclear if a Directive (a legal instrument addressed at Member States) could contain something that regulates the EU institutions themselves.
Securing the up- and downstream is of major importance here and will be a challenge. When the EU produces a brochure they often buy stock photos. They would have to make sure these are obtained under a free license in the first place. On the other end, EU funds are spent on paying for things like infrastructure (part of highway funding includes costs for producing PR films and photos of the project) and films. It is unclear under which circumstance they could require that such content is also freely licensed.
We are talking to the European Commission units about reaching out to the European Parliament and making the re-use decision universal and binding across the EU institutions, in case there is no chance to have this enshrined in hard law.
-----------------
-----------------
#WIPO #copyright
4. WIPO Broadcast Treaty
Why is this relevant?
This is major attempt to grant copyright protection to content that has been broadcasted. With other words, if a TV station takes a film that is in the public domain and broadcasts it, it would receive new copyright protection on its broadcast (which is essentially a simple reproduction of something in the public domain).
The arguments here are closely related to the claims that 2D reproductions (i.e. photos) of free content are themselves copyright protected.
What happened?
The WIPO Broadcast Treaty keeps resurfacing throughout the years [11] and as TV broadcasters are becoming more and more worried that they’re losing big chunks of their business to new competitors they’ve stepped up the effort to secure themselves extra protection. [12][13] This is seen as very serious threat by organisations like Creative Commons and the EFF, as it could lead to a restriction of access to works that are in the public domain. [14][15]
What comes next?
It would be good to think about whether Wikimeda has a role to play here. If we’re concerned about not allowing new protection of 2D reproductions of free content, this must be something that we have a position on.
-----------------
-----------------
[1]https://pub.juliareda.eu/copyright_evaluation_report.pdf
[2]https://juliareda.eu/2015/01/reactions-to-my-copyright-report/
[3]http://www.iabeurope.eu/files/5914/2168/2710/IAB_Europe_PR_on_copyright.pdf
[5]https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Engage/MEP_Counselling#Legal_Affairs_Committee_.28JURI.29
[6]https://twitter.com/DigitalAgendaEU/status/560708023510110208
[7]http://digitalagendaintergroup.eu/members/
[8]http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-15-3542_en.htm
[9]https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Statement_of_Intent
[10]http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+WQ+E-2015-000083+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN
[11]http://keionline.org/copyright/wipobroadcasting/timeline
[14]http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/35199
[15]http://boingboing.net/2014/12/10/un-wants-to-give-broadcasters.html