Hello, everybody!
This month we will give you a more in-depth view of fewer files. In
particular the Political Advertising Regulation seems to be reaching the
finishing line. The AI Act, on the other hand, looks stuck.
Dimi & Michele
=== Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising ===
The proposed regulation
<https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52021PC0731>
aims at regulating political advertising services with a focus on targeting
and amplification techniques. The state goal is making them more
transparent and thus contributing to the proper functioning of the internal
market for those services. The last trilogue meeting (the de facto final
stage of the legislative deliberations) took place on 6 Novmber and
lawmakers, under the guidance of the Spanish Presidency, managed to reach a
political deal.
—
The final agreement solves the thorny issue of defining political
advertising by introducing a remuneration element and encompassing in house
activities as well as political campaigns. Nonetheless, the new definition
leaves room for a broad interpretation, especially concerning in house
activities. Some civil society organisations are worried that their regular
advocacy activities might get caught in the crossfire. At Wikimedia Europe
we followed this debate to ensure that no definition of political
advertising would cover Wikipedia articles about politicians and parties,
for instance.
—
A ban for non-EU advertisers has been introduced, in the last three months
preceding an election or referendum, be it at EU, national, regional or
local level.
—
With regard to the possibility to use special categories of personal data
to profile people and deliver targeted messages, legislators introduced a
specific prohibition. The latter applies also to inferred data, thus
offering a proper protection. At Wikimedia Europe we expressed support to
ban the use of targeted advertising based on sensitive data. During the
deliberations some Member States wanted to explicitly allow this for
political campaigns, although this has been prohibited by the Digital
Services Act just a few months earlier.
—
The new rules will enter into application after 18 months from the adoption
of the regulation. This practically means that they will not be in place
for the future EU elections foreseen in June 2024.
—
Technical meetings are still taking place to translate the political deal
into a coherent (more or less) legislative text and fine tune the details:
the deadline was the 28th of November. Once the final text is agreed, both
Parliament and Council will vote on it (and lawyer linguists translate it).
The vote is then followed by the signature and the publication into the
Official Journal. The adoption is likely to take place in December or at
worst in January 2024.
=== AI Act ===
The Artificial Intelligence Act
<https://oeil.secure.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/popups/ficheprocedure.do?reference=2021/0106(COD)&l=en>’s
trilogue negotiations, where the Council and the Parliament are supposed to
hash out a final version of the text, are at a standstill. The drama
reached new heights as parliamentary staffers walked out of a meeting with
government representatives of the Council and European Commission officials
a few days ago.
—
The latest rift is about foundation models (“general purpose AI”). Those
are systems like chatGPT that do not have a specific task and are hard to
pin down in legislation. They weren’t specifically mentioned in the
Commission proposal and were added to the debate by the European
Parliament, which is suggesting to have binding rules on them. At the same
time the Council, led by Germany, France and Italy, is insisting on
sticking to the original plan
<https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S_WJ2mWjbFL1GM173tYFuWzc_MDTHUr5/view?usp=sharing>
of a risk-based approach. This would mean that foundational models would
have to comply with obligations if they are deemed “high-risk”. Another
point of contention is how reliable the risk assessments will be, as they
are currently self-assessments by the developers.
—
The Spanish Presidency of the Council is trying to find a middle ground
here, but has been told by the Council’s “big three” that on such a
fundamental issue a decision simply needs to be made and a compromise is
not possible.
—
Wikimedia projects wouldn’t be deemed “high-risk” under the current version
and Wikimedia doesn’t develop foundational models, so we are currently in
the role of a participant in the conversation, but don’t expect direct &
immediate effects.
=== Copyright Agenda-Setting ===
While the next legislative term is unlikely to see an outright copyright
reform, we still expect some legislative files related to intellectual
property to be tackled. Possible topics include orphan works, geoblocking,
database rights, live broadcasts of sports events and the market balance
between music streaming platforms and rights holders.
—
With this in mind it is noteworthy that the European Parliament’s Culture
Committee (CULT) adopted a non-binding, own-initiative report on cultural
diversity and the conditions for authors in the music streaming market
<https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/CULT-PR-750068_EN.pdf>. The
final text asks for a better allocation of revenues and more transparency.
It also vaguely points to risks to intellectual property and the music
industry stemming from artificial intelligence.
—
The report calls on the European Commission to analyse the
“discoverability” of European music online. While there is nothing binding
here and this report could end up without any follow-up, it will surely be
used by interested stakeholders to demand legislative proposals from the
European Commission.
—
Another EP committee, on Legal Affairs (JURI), commissioned and published a
study titled Buyout contracts imposed by platforms in the cultural and
creative sector
<https://drive.google.com/file/d/1k-aab1uM5P57lZPT9sc880ltIdNw2YrB/view?usp=sharing>.
The study concludes that EU law needs to be changed in order to ensure
artists rights for fair remuneration. Not surprisingly the study is being
used by GESAC, the umbrella for organisations collecting royalties on
behalf of authors, to ask for reforms.
—
On another own-initiative front, the Internal Market Committee (IMCO) voted
recently to call on the Commission to remove the exemption that allows
audiovisual content to continue to be geoblocked across EU countries. This
would mean any content or service to be available everywhere in the EU. The
audiovisual sector is, naturally, not amused and is fighting this is
plenary.
=== END ===
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Wikimedia Europe ivzw