tl;dr
Ça y est ! The copyright amendments in the lead European Parliament
committees have been proposed. From now on we are focused on building
consensus and forging compromises. In the meanwhile, we answered the
European Commission’s consultation on “data driven economy”, telling them
that a new related right on data isn’t a swell idea. In Hungary, a new
proposed law might make operating NGOs with funds from abroad very
unpleasant.
This and past reports:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Monitor
===
Copyright reform - Amendments on the table: With the exception of the
tardive Civil Liberties Committee all relevant bodies have proposed their
amendments to the EU copyright reform text. [1] Why this is so important?
From now on no new text can be added, meaning that the
final version that
the European Parliament will adopt must be made out of wordings
and
snippets already on the table. The rapporteurs and their shadows are
starting to plough through the 3000+ amendments and to look for possible
compromises.
---
Legal Affairs Committee (JURI): This is the main lead committee.
Essentially, the version it adopts will be one voted on in plenary, except
for Article 13 (upload filtering). We are still waiting for the committee's
secretariat to compile the file with the 1000+ amendments and to send it to
the translation services, which makes it a bit hard to analyse what we will
be working against in the coming months. What we know for sure is that a
full Freedom of Panorama has been proposed by MEPs from the Social
Democrat, Liberal, Green and Radical Left groups. We are unsure about the
Conservative Reformist group. We also know that a Safeguard the Public
Domain clause has been proposed by the Social Democrat and Green shadow
rapporteurs. Other than that, positive changes on the table are a complete
deletion of the press publishers’ right, a removal of the upload filtering
provisions, a full user-generated content exception, a full text and data
mining exception and several broad educational exceptions.
What we cannot really know yet is what and how many negative proposals are
heading our way. From here on the next step is for the rapporteur and her
shadow rapporteurs (one from each political group) to figure out where they
can reach an agreement ahead of the committee vote. The first consideration
of amendments has been scheduled for the 29 & 30 May. Until then many
conversations will be had.
---
Internal Market Committee (IMCO): This committee takes the lead only on
Article 13, which is asking for online platforms with large amounts of
user-generated content to install “content recognition technologies” and to
cooperate with rightsholders. There was a meeting of this committee last
Monday where this role of online platforms was debated. [2] Although the
context of the discussing included another Directive, there still seems to
be a majority that recognises that this is also a censorship issue
(something we have been raising). Even Christian Democrat MEPs are
critical. It seem clear that Article 13 with substantially change in
nature. It is however not clear how. Most MEPs want to keep some text
included, but are struggling to find the wording that will appease most
stakeholders. We from Wikimedia are emphasising that public domain content,
content used under exceptions & limitations and freely licensed should be
by default excluded from the provision. More importantly, we need to make
sure that the intermediary liability provisions of the E-Commerce Directive
remain in place. The million euro question is, what do rightsholders get in
return, if we get all these safeguards and delete any mention of “content
recognition technologies”?
---
Opinion Giving Committees: The rapporteur of the Industry and Trade
Committee (ITRE) has decided to work on an opinion dealing only with text
and data mining and Article 13. On the first topic Mr. Krasnodebski (ECR
PL) has proposed a full and broad exception that we can fully embrace. On
the latter, his team are currently working on a compromise with the
shadows. There is political willingness to listen to our concerns and try
to reflect them in the compromise text.
The Culture Committee (CULT) is not great on too many issues, but has
proposed a baseline Freedom of Panorama (mandatory everywhere but details
up to Member States). What is a surprising turn is that the Christian
Democrats are supporting such an exception while the Italian shadow from
Movimento 5 Stelle, who have previously supported a full Freedom of
Panorama, now prefers not having it at all.
The Civil Liberties Committee (LIBE) has, after some political wrangling,
finally received the right to contribute an opinion. They are joining the
procedure very late, which means that by the time they are done the lead
committees might have already agreed on many compromises. Still, the LIBE
opinion can be used to feed new wordings into the process.
===
European Data Economy Consultation: After roaming, data protection,
privacy, digital contracts, geo-blocking and copyright, the European
Commission is now tackling data as its next big Digital Single Market
package. We have communicated to the Commission as early as 2016 (by form
of meetings with the relevant units and two political cabinets) that the
Database Rights Directive and the sui generis right it establishes is a
major nuisance. Instead of tacking this clearly defined issue, the European
Commission ran an extremely, blatantly biased consultation [3] (excuse me,
but these qualifications are actually an understatement) on how to improve
the European Data Economy. Their premise is that data is valuable and
should be used and shared. Companies don’t share (read: sell) their data
because they have no way to protect its economic value. So, by establishing
a new copyright-like right on data, sharing in Europe will be fostered.
Wikimedia [4][5] and EDRi [6] have answered the consultation. In our
answers, we kept hammering the point across that current legal obstacles
are what is hindering the sharing of non-personal data. We also called them
out on their bias and made sure not to forget to mention that personal data
must remain protected. Next we are expecting a dialogue or some other form
of structured, real-life consultation.
===
Hungary: The government proposed new law in Hungary that would require NGOs
receiving more than 7.2M HUF (~23000 EUR) from foreign sources ("directly
or indirectly", whatever that means) to register as an "organization
supported from abroad" and say that on every publication it issues. It also
includes stringent reporting criteria for foreign funds (including the name
and location of every single donor). Text of the proposal [7] (in
Hungarian), Council of Europe review
<https://www.coe.int/en/web/ingo/-/the-conference-of-ingos-calls-on-hungary-not-to-adopt-draft-law-bill-t-14967-undermining-freedom-of-association>.
[8]
This is part of a trend of government hostility to NGOs, especially
watchdog and liberal NGOs, which are seen as tools of international
political forces. Another planned but not yet proposed legislation would
require NGO officials to publish a wealth declaration, much like
politicians.
This would probably be a significant burden on NGOs operating in a
chapter/grant system like Wikimedia does, both administratively and because
"organizations supported from abroad" would likely become targets of
pro-government propaganda.
(HT Tisza Gergő)
===
Your Input: From now on this report will offer a tribune to policy related
news from European countries. Please don’t hesitate to just drop me some
text if you believe it fits here. Many thanks to Tisza for being the first
to volunteer!
===
[1]
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/popups/ficheprocedure.do?reference=2016/…
[2]
http://www.emeeting.europarl.europa.eu/committees/agenda/201704/IMCO/CJ18(2…
[3]
https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/public-consultation-buil…
[4]
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/European_Data_Economy_C…
[5]
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/European_Data_Economy_C…
[
6]https://pad.edri.org/public_pad/Data%20Economy%20public%20consultation
[7]http://www.parlament.hu/irom40/14967/14967.pdf
[8]
https://www.coe.int/en/web/ingo/-/the-conference-of-ingos-calls-on-hungary-…