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