tl;dr
The crucial copyright vote in the European Parliament has been postponed
until at least the end of January. The Council negotiations have been fed a
new round of compromises drafted by Estonia.
This and past reports:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Monitor
===
European Parliament on Copyright Reform
---
The lead committee (Legal Affairs, JURI) has expectedly rescheduled its
vote on the copyright reform to its 24/25 January session. [1] We are
still waiting for the new rapporteur Axel Voss (EPP, DE) to propose his
first compromise amendments. Now is the time to give him and the shadows of
this file wordings they can actually work with. Ancillary copyright and
upload filtering seem to be the most debated items, which less time being
spent on discussing exceptions.
---
The last remaining opinion giving committee (Civil Liberties, LIBE) has
also postponed its vote to 6 November. [1] LIBE is working exclusively on
the upload filtering for UGC sites article. [2] In the last shadow meeting
(where MEPs working on the dossier meet) every political group, except the
EPP, agreed to support the compromise that was also passed in the Internal
Market committee (IMCO). [3] This would be good news for us, as this
version protects the intermediary protections we currently enjoy and
doesn’t mention “content recognition technologies”. If two powerful
committees (IMCO, LIBE) support this compromise it will be the basis for
the work in the lead committee (JURI).
===
New Estonian Compromises on Copyright
---
Meanwhile the Estonian Presidency has drafted new compromise proposal which
it will hope a majority of the Member States can agree on. They were
originally partially leaked over Politico, but it was the Austrian
Parliament that made them fully available. [4] Kudos!
---
On the upload filtering article we cannot like or support the proposed
compromise, as it goes on to redefine the concept of “communication to the
public” in a way that hurts intermediary protections we rely on.
Furthermore, while the term “content recognition technology” has been
dropped from the actual article (good!), it now simply appears in the
recitals (not good!).
---
The proposed text and data mining exception is not really good enough. It
allows cultural and research organisations to create copies for the purpose
of using technical analysis in the context of research, but asks them to
retain the copies no longer than strictly needed for conducting the
research. The main reason for having such an exception in the first place
is that scientific results must be reproducible and thus the data should be
included in the documentation. Theoretically all other mining uses that
only require temporary technical copies are already covered by an exception
and legal. This however is only mentioned in a recital, which is a bit
weak.
---
The Estonian Presidency makes some efforts to widen the proposed education
exception by expanding the number of places illustrations for teaching will
be possible. Originally only the premises of education establishments were
included, now also “other venues” are included, as long as the school or
university is responsible for the event.
===
E-Privacy Regulation
---
The Civil Liberties committee has voted to pass all compromise amendments
on the E-Privacy Regulation and to start trialogues (negotiations on the
final text with the Council and the Commission). The committee position was
later also confirmed in a plenary vote. [5] The final Parliament position
[6] is a strong text that pushes the “privacy by default” principle and
that will nonetheless get rid of the “cookie banners”, which you might have
seen when opening sites from the EU.
===
PSI Directive
---
As part of its “data economy” legislative package [7], which is expected 1H
2018, the European Commission will also attempt to reform the Public Sector
Information Directive. [8] This piece of EU legislation tries to push
public bodies across the EU to open up as much content and data as
possible. It currently mostly recommends the use of free licensing, which
has not been as effective in switching public bodies to an open model of
publishing. A few years ago the Commission therefore released a “best
practice guide” on how to implement it. [9] We will recommend for these
best practices to become binding. If you want to work on our answers with
us, please do so through the dedicated Meta-Wiki page. [10]
===
Belgium: More panoramic drama
---
Since about a year there is a Freedom of Panorama exception in Belgium. It
is not limited to non-commercial uses but, as a compromise, includes that
the uses should “not conflict with a normal exploitation of the work”. This
is not an issue for buildings, whose normal exploitation is being
rented/inhabited. However it could be tricky for landmarks. How far this
restriction really goes will now be tested. The Atomium (the non-for-profit
that inherited the rights from the architect after his death) will sue
French DJ Hamida, because the latter filmed his latest music video in front
of Brussels landmark without asking for permission. [11]
===
[1]https://juliareda.eu/eu-copyright-reform/
[
2]https://www.communia-association.org/tag/article-13/
[3]
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=COMPARL&reference=PE…
[4]
https://www.parlament.gv.at/PAKT/EU/XXV/EU/16/00/EU_160054/imfname_10757971…
[5]
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20171025IPR86836/parliamen…
[6]
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=REPORT&reference=A8-…
[7]
https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/policies/building-european-da…
[8]
https://ec.europa.eu/info/consultations/public-consultation-review-directiv…
[9]http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/document.cfm?action=display&doc_id=6421
[
10]https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/PSI_Directive_Consultation
[11]
https://www.rtbf.be/info/regions/detail_l-atomium-va-reclamer-des-droits-d-…