I've spent a good chunk of the day reading through the first 31 questions; the comments on meta about those questions, and the responses proposed by Dimi and others at http://youcan.fixcopyright.eu/en/full/?guide=wikimedia

All the comments essentially agree, with only some small variations. Since we don't have any serious splits of opinion, I think the idea of a combined answer that represents this as the opinion of the Foundation makes sense. (Not clear to what extent we should also represent this as the opinion of Wikimedians - opinions welcome on that.)

With that goal in mind, I've drafted proposed answers to each question, which incorporate comments from (among others) Seb35, Deryck C., Sapfan, NaBUru38, Aktron, and Kaldari.

I think the best place to discuss individual answers is in the talk pages, so I'll start uploading those shortly. I've also more-or-less copied this email into https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:European_Commission_copyright_consultation#Goals_and_next_steps if people prefer to discuss there.

Luis



On Mon, Jan 27, 2014 at 2:09 AM, Michael Maggs <Michael@maggs.name> wrote:
It’s not clear to me what will be done with the answers proposed so far at 

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/European_Commission_copyright_consultation

Will  they be submitted as they are, or is someone proposing to merge them into a single version (even though many answers have been signed)?

Also unclear unless I have missed something is who will the answers be submitted by, and on whose behalf?  Only individuals - and not the Foundation nor chapters - have formally posted answers so far, so is the intention that the answers will be submitted by and on behalf of those individuals only?  

The page says that the response "can be submitted by the Wikimedia Foundation and other interested groups”, so perhaps the answers are merely intended as a resource others can use if they wish?

If the intention is that a formal response will be submitted on behalf of the unincorporated group Free Knowledge Advocacy Group EU, then it would be sensible for that group to register with the EU Transparency Register, here:

http://ec.europa.eu/transparencyregister/info/homePage.do?locale=en

According to the EU, responses to the consultation from non-registered entities will "be published separately from the registered organisations”, which may mean less influence. See:

http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/consultations/2013/copyright-rules/index_en.htm

(I note that the Foundation is not registered!)

By the way, WMUK will be completing and filing its own separate response.

Michael



From: Dimitar Parvanov Dimitrov <dimitar.parvanov.dimitrov@gmail.com>
Date: 21 January 2014 14:51
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] European Commission Copyright Consultation
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>


Hi everyone,

Just a quick reminder that we have 6 more days to collaboratively draft
answers to the European Commission's copyright consultation.

The idea is to give the global, online community a chance to come up with
answers that, if coherent enough, can then be officially given to the
Commission.

We see this as a social experiment, since no one until now has ever
attempted to answer collaboratively and publicly such short-termed and
in-depth consultations.

The corresponding link is:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/European_Commission_copyright_consultation

Have fun answering!

Dimi
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