Wikimedia EU Public Policy Report April 2015

Since Politico has launched a Brussels version (wmde.org/1JbgQ3Y), I was tempted to test their ticker-like newsletter style. This means shorter articles and less structure. I get the sense that people find it increasingly challenging to read 4 pages full of longer paragraphs on mailing lists. Instead they need to be able to quickly skip to bits that interest them. Let me know what you think! I may stick with the format if it proves popular.

Dimi

tl;dr
Vote on “Reda Report” postponed by more than a month. FoP is looking good. PDGov is a toss-up.

This and past reports: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Monitor

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EP’s Copyright Directive Implementation Report (a.k.a. Reda Report)>>>

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1) Report Vote Postponed: The Committee vote on the report has been postponed by more than a month. New indicative dates are 15-16 June for the Legal Affairs committee and 6-9 July for the plenary vote. Reasons are manifold and include complexity of subject matter, uneasy compromises and elections in the UK and Poland. This gives us a chance to work on PDGov, but also opens the doors for a counter-effort. In general we have convincing arguments but less “firing power”, so extra time can be both a blessing and a curse.
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2) Compromises on FoP and PDGov: The MEPs have been pottering around for weeks and it looks like “non-commercial” for FoP is largely gone, although still asked for by a some. Getting French Conservatives to drop this demand would be especially helpful. PDGov is more challenging. The EP will most likely call the Commission to lower barriers, but it remains an open question if it will explicitly mention PDGov itself. Assuring support from Spanish, Italian and German Socialists plus anyone from the UK would be a priority. Many national governments, like the UK, have invested in a home-grown “open license” and see this proposal as something that competes with their beloved initiatives.

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3) ITRE’s opinion: The Industry, Research and Technology Committee adopted an opinion on the Reda Report calling for shortening copyright terms and safeguarding the public domain. It also stresses that exceptions and limitations are an integral part of any copyright framework. wmde.org/1JbgKcC
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4) CULT has no opinion: In contrast to ITRE, the Culture Committee failed to accept its opinion by one vote. What this means is not clear, confusion in the room was mounting to a point where MEPs didn’t even know which paragraphs they were voting on. Before shooting itself in the foot, the Committee passed PDGov by a two vote majority and voted down FoP by one. A clear toss-up that shows how close we are to changing outcomes or failing at it. Notes by [[User:Nemo_bis]] wmde.org/1DE8Za2

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5) Copyfraud, linking: Other than our core issues, safeguarding the public domain and making sure we’re not liable for links that appear on our websites would definitely be things to look out for. We’re not exactly hopeful, but reaching compromises that don’t go into the completely wrong direction is not entirely impossible. Communia is focusing on safeguarding the PD, while Mozilla will zero in on linking. From our side, I was given useful copyfraud examples on the WMFR lobbying list wmde.org/1OHNLDZ

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6) Opposition forming: Rumours of several anti-reform coalitions are making the round here. Chitchats like “the biggest pro-copyright coalition since the 1990s” are becoming water cooler hits in the Commission, the Parliament and among reporters. There’s nothing official to pin this to, so we don’t know if this is a bluff or an actual threat. Keep your eyes open for any coordinated pro-copyright messages. wmde.org/1Q1IFQb

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New IPR Working Group: The Internal Market Committee of the EP has formed another copyright working group (wmde.org/1zsZFuV). This one seems to be much more balanced than the one lead by our all time favourite MEP Jean-Marie Cavada (wmde.org/1EtJGLV). We did join an open letter calling for a balanced representation on the latter (wmde.org/1I0urOx).

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DSM Strategy: On 6 May the Commission will present its plans on the Digital Single Market (wmde.org/1P9zSJG). This is supposed to vaguely encompass everything “digital” and more precisely include details on copyright, telecoms, VAT, funding and more. The leaks so far have revealed lackluster plans (wmde.org/1HTSayg), but we still expect the Commission to go for harmonising a few exceptions and are trying to get into position by having the EP endorse our asks and engaging the Commission on a weekly basis. Meanwhile, everyone else has also been firing away (e.g. wmde.org/1FzCFLI & wmde.org/1Jblf6Q) while an unambitious DG Connect cabinet would obviously prefer to deal with pretty much anything else.

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Mozilla to join Brussels Advocacy Efforts: After hiring the former AccessNow Policy Director (wmde.org/1EtPGEf), the folks at Mozilla are getting serious about their EU advocacy work. They will hire someone in Brussels to represent them and work on “innovation” and “not breaking the internet”. Perhaps the OKFN, now under new leadership (wmde.org/1zt3znE), wants to follow suit?

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Attempts to unfreeze Net Neutrality: There has been some activity by the Commission to get the blocked net neutrality legislation going. After the Parliament passed on the dossier with strong NN protections, it has been stalled by the Member States in the Council. As for WP:0 - the Commission and Council proposals would allow it, the EP’s wouldn’t. It’s now all up to the compromises in the trialogue wmde.org/1OHWaYg

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Shameless self-promotion>>>

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1) FoP Event by co-hosted by Wikimedia: The chair of the Legal Affairs Committee Pavel Svoboda has agree to host a Freedom of Panorama workshop for us in the European Parliament on the 27th of May between 9-11. Him being part of the largest group, this makes for a good chance to position FoP as an accepted mainstream compromise. John Weitzmann from Creative Commons will represent the civil society side while Prof. Guiseppe Mazziotti from Trinity College Dublin will be the academic voice. Commission and industry representatives TBC. Draft poster wmde.org/1DYg2uW

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2) Italian digital hero [[User:Nemo]] first Visiting Weasel in Brussels: All you need to know is in the blog post wmde.org/1zt6fBF

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3) NGO Strategy Lunch and WM Salon on copyright reform in Berlin: Next Friday we’re going at it in Germany. First a NGO strategy lunch (wmde.org/1JCUg7M) in order to establish closer ties with “traditional” NGOs like Amnesty International, HumanRightsWatch and Reporters Without Borders and then a discussion on copyright reform (wmde.org/abc-salon).

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Call for action>>>

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1) Call for callers: If you haven’t participated in our FoP and PDGov advocacy campaign so far and would like to speak your mind to a politician in a structured and well-articulated manner, react on or off-list.

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2) Revamping on Meta-Wiki: We need someone to help us restructure parts of the EU Policy Meta-Wiki Page (http://wmde.org/1DMp8f9). Probably 10-15 minutes of work for more experienced coders.

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3) Layout of short&simple brochures: Graphic design is your thing? We would like to have three brochures on our EU Policy goals and wouldn’t mind them to boost appealing looks.

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