Hi all,
Just an update on today's vote on the EU copyright reform in the Internal
Market Committee (IMCO). This is one of the two lead committees on this
file. It was an important vote, although the final word will be with the
Legal Affairs Committee (JURI). The final result is a very much a mixed
bag.
*The good*
A compromise on Article 13 ("upload filtering") was found that was widely
supported by most groups. In a late night/early morning deal, the EPP
agreed to vote in favour of the draft made by Polish MEP Michal Boni in the
Civil Liberties Committee (LIBE). [1] The adapted wording maintains the
liability exemptions of the E-Commerce Directive and specifically mentions
that exceptions and limitations must be respected.
There was a compromise amendment on preservation of cultural heritage aimed
at helping cultural heritage institutions. It also included a public domain
safeguard, but very surprisingly failed in a 15/15 tie. A separate
amendment that positively defines and safeguards the public domain passed.
(see AM 383 [2]) The wording reads that once a work is in the public
domain, copies thereof do not grant new copyright or related rights.
A full, mandatory EU Freedom of Panorama passed as a compromise amendment.
The positive result was at first contested, so it had to be voted a second
time. The narrow majority was confirmed.
Albeit not something we can use on our projects, an educational exception
compromise passed trying to fix some cross-border uses. This is a small
gain, but still a step in the right direction and something that will
benefit access to online education as a whole.
*The bad*
All amendments on the so-called ancillary copyright for press publishers
failed. Which means that the version of the European Commission was kept.
This however grants a new related right to publishers on even the tiniest
extracts of texts from articles, even just the title. Such a rule would
basically require all annotated bibliographies to require licensing. Also,
links that include the title of the article would require licensing. This
is very much a poisonous pill.
The compromise on text and data mining failed to get a majority in what was
the most surprising result of the day. Instead individual amendments were
approved that keep this activity limited to research organisations and
cultural heritage institutions only.
*The next steps*
We need to analyse the situation and re-group with other partners on TDM
and ancillary copyright. These two parts of the reform are fundamental to
the inner workings of the internet - searching and linking. We can't afford
to break these.
With safeguarding the public domain and Freedom of Panorama we have
achieved a good first win. Especially the latter is already being heavily
attacked in the Legal Affairs Committee. We will have until September to
get a majority in this committee as well.
Cheers,
Dimi
[1]
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-%2f%2fEP%2f%2fNONSGML…
[2]
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-%2F%2FEP%2F%2FNONSGML…