tl;dr
It is the final weeks of a digital policy frenzy here in Brussels before
the institutions go into hibernation from 11 December. The Estonian
Presidency is doing all it can to get a Council negotiating position on
copyright by year’s end, but isn’t likely to make it. Meanwhile, the lead
committee of the European Parliament is struggling to find compromises and
is expected to postpone the vote.
This and past reports:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Monitor
=========
European Council on Copyright Reform
---
Estonia really wants it: Estonia’s Presidency is about to end and the
country really wants to seal a Council deal on copyright. Apart from
really, really wanting to be the cool kids that wrapped it up, rumours have
it that they equally distrust the Bulgarian Presidency.
---
Strike Two: After heavy criticism of the October compromise proposal on
upload filters, [1] they tried to remedy some of the pain points by
floating an updated compromise proposal in November. [2] While the new text
tries to exclude non-for-profit platforms from the scope (“with the aim of
obtaining profit from their use”), it also completely messes up the
intermediary liability protection of the E-Commerce Directive in the
recitals and seems to re-define the “communication to the public” principle
on the fly. Both are fundamental to how the internet and the knowledge
environment currently operate and turning them upside down in recitals and
without public debate is probably not the most sensible thing to do.
---
Opposition United: At the same time a group of 80+ civil society and
cultural heritage organisations (including the FKAGEU and WMDE) have joined
a rare one-sentence open letter [3] in order to make themselves heard ahead
of the Competitiveness Council meeting scheduled to discuss copyright
today. [4] The letter basically lists the previous open letters and
evidence critical of the current approach.
=========
European Council on Copyright Reform
---
The Parliament takes its time: Unlike the Council, the Parliament doesn’t
seem to be in too much of a hurry. Well, they also don’t have the luxury to
do everything hidden from the public. (Sorry for the mini-rant.)
---
LIBE shows little love for filters: The last opinion giving committee
finally voted on its report this month. [5] The Civil Liberties committee
decided to copy the Internal Market committee’s compromise (which was
originally copied from LIBE, anyway, good thing copying is allowed… oh
wait...). Regardless, this is good news, as the IMCO/LIBE compromise is a
good one. It deletes the upload filters obligation and keeps the E-Commerce
Directive intact. This version of the article will serve as a basis for
deliberations in JURI.
---
JURI is insecure: The last rounds of shadow meetings in the lead Legal
Affairs committee didn’t produce a breakthrough. We are nowhere near
compromises on the more controversial articles 11 (ancillary copyright) and
13 (upload filters). The last round of talks didn’t even manage to produce
an agreement on article 4 (education). Seen that the Christmas break is
nearing and that most of the dossier is yet to be negotiated, voting on 25
January as planned seems unrealistic.
---
Juri is surprised by article 4 fight: We were supposed to quickly deal with
compromises on “uncontroversial” articles, including article 4 (education
exception). Instead it was a fight and we are happy about it! What had been
proposed as a compromise demonstrated how out of tune the publishers are
with developments in education. Thanks in part to Communia’s quick action
in mobilising their network of educational organisations, some MEPs
protested and the compromise has to be rewritten.
===
IPRED - No legislative change
---
The Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED) deals with
injunctions against and seizures of content and goods that infringes
intellectual property. [6] As such it covers everything from counterfeit
Gucci pumps to torrents. The Commission’s communication on its revision was
first leaked [7] and then officially published [8]. The good news is that
they won’t re-open this piece of legislation, but instead opt for issuing
non-binding guidelines on its implementation. The issue is that it seems
like another tool to force upload filters upon information society service
provides: “(...) the draft aims to clarify how and whether an injunction
against an internet service provider could force them to use filtering
technologies to identify potential copyright infringements.”
===
Visiting Volunteer
Last week of November, under a reignited scheme of inviting people to work
with us on policy issues in Brussels, we have hosted Dr. Alexandra
Giannopoulos, a Greek lawyer and academic working in Paris. Alex has met a
number of MEPs, from GUE, S&D and EPP as well as the Greek Permanent
Representation. As a result we have new MEP contacts, including EPP leads
that could counterweight the group’s approach to content filtering. We
loved having her over and we hope the cooperation will continue! Soon we
will post a call for next year’s visiting volunteers programme - stay tuned!
===
[1]
https://www.parlament.gv.at/PAKT/EU/XXV/EU/16/00/EU_160054/imfname_10757971…
[2]
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GQf3qe5T3Qa4hisVGtZVkXVTvmnZOvE6/view?usp=…
[
3]http://copybuzz.com/copyright/november-2017-open-letter-eu-reform/
[4]http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/meetings/compet/2017/11/30-01/
[5]
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-%2f%2fEP%2f%2fNONSGML…
[
6]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enforcement_Directive
[7]
https://www.politico.eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/IPRED-communication.pdf?…
[8]https://ec.europa.eu/docsroom/documents/26582