[Advocacy Advisors] EU Policy Monitoring Report - May

[Dimitar Parvanov Dimitrov]

 Hi, gang!

Sorry for crossposting if you are on eu-policy-announce, but we'd like to
encourage comments or questions on this, so I believe it makes good sense
if we also post the reports on Advocacy Advisors.

Dimi

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*tl;dr*

The first monitoring report on EU Policy strives to give a brief overview
over current legislative debates in Brussels that might be of interest to
the Wikimedia movement. We have five topics:



1. Collective Rights Management and Online Use

2. EU-US Trade Agreement

3. Stakeholder Dialogue on Copyright

4. EU Data Protection

5. Network Neutrality



*#CRM*

*Collective Rights Management and Online Use of Music Works *



*What’s going on?*

The European Commission’s directive proposal *on collective management of
copyright and related rights and multi-territorial licensing of rights in
musical works for online uses in the internal market *[1]* *has entered the
next stage of the legislative process by being submitted to the European
Parliament and the Council of the European Union.

The reform aims to tweak the current legislation by making collecting
societies more transparent and ensuring cross-border compatibility of
licenses on the internal market, especially when it comes to online use of
works.



*Why should we care?*

The directive intends, although vaguely, to introduce non-commercial uses
(read: Creative Commons licenses) as an option for creators in the
collective management system.

As the Commission proposal is anything but clear on this, there is
currently a push and pull within the Parliament as to how far this should
go. Industry proponents argue for a “minimum harmonisation approach”, which
means that no exact measures will be specified. At the same time, the
Parliament’s Culture Committee says that authors should be given the right
to remove some of their works from the collective management system and
publish them under a free license. Currently collecting societies in the EU
don’t allow their clients to make parts of their work generally available
(e.g. One song of an album to be released under a CC license). In Germany,
there is simultaneously a strong effort to build up a non-exclusive
collecting society.[2]



*Game plan?*

The first reading in the Parliament is forecasted for the 19.11.2013. The
four non-leading committees have already published their draft opinions.
Until then the lead committee (Legal Affairs - Rapporteur Marielle Gallo,
EPP) will publish its report and amendment proposals can still be tabled.
There is also a mandatory consultation with the Economic and Social
Committee.



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*#IPRTTIP*

*Intellectual Property Regulation in EU-US Trade Agreement*



*What’s going on?*

Both the EU and the US have expressed their intent to include an IPR
chapter in TTIP, though its final scope will be subject of negotiations.



*Why should we care?*

Remember ACTA? We cannot be generally for or against this motion yet, since
the content is not even discussed yet. We do however, as many other
stakeholders, have an interest that the negotiations are public and
transparent so that “surprise packages” (such as a more rigorous liability
regime for providers) can be avoided.



*Game plan?*

Some MEPs are currently organising dialogues and meetings to hear about the
fears and hopes of the stakeholders. Generally speaking, an involvement of
the Parliament in the negotiations would make the process more predictable.
Currently a group of digital rights organisations are trying to motivate DG
Trade to release the texts, an effort not met warmly within the Commission
(and the Parliament Committee on Trade for that matter). A vote on this
treaty could happen well before the EP elections in 2014.



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*#Licenses4Europe*

*Stakeholder Dialogue on Copyright Reform*



*What’s going on?*

The European Commission has launched a stakeholder dialogue in four working
groups with the intention to discuss current licensing issues and come up
with a reform proposal.



*Why should we care?*

   - Although this does not seem to be turning out as the major copyright
   reform originally claimed, its general intention to address “user-generated
   content” should make us alert and calls for keeping an eye on the whole
   process.
   - After some early signals from the Commission that new Fair Use
   exceptions be introduced, there has been silence on this issue as none of
   the current participants want or can bring it up.
   - Another possibility is that cross-border compatibility of licenses is
   addressed, which could improve or worsen some of the issues with our
   content across Europe.
   - Simultaneously there might be a move towards stronger copyright
   enforcement and more restrictive use of content online



*Game plan?*

The working groups will conduct regular meeting until the end of this year.
The Commission plans to table a legislative proposal early 2014.



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*#EUdataP*

*EU Data Protection*



*What’s going on?*

The European Commission originally wanted to guarantee a high level of data
protection to all of its citizens online. This has turned into real trench
warfare of several accounts. The topics discussed include:

   - The “right to be forgotten”
   - Definition of "personal data"
   - Should pseudonymous data be exempt from regulation
   - Should there be a “justifiable interest” exception allowing companies
   to not ask for consent
   - Who is going to control it and will there be fines



*Why should we care?*

While we are currently complying with even the stricter proposals, as
website operators, administrators and editors we need to be aware of what
is legal and what is coming.

There was some fear that the “right to be forgotten” might force us to
delete information from our websites, but it currently looks like this risk
is off the table.

There are currently no inherent or apparent risks for us in this although
we do care deeply about the topic.



*Game plan?*

The Lead Comittee’s (LIBE) vote is expected before the summer break 2013.
After that the dossier will move to the 1st plenary hearing and a vote in
the Council, where significant changes are highly unlikely.



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*#netneutrality*

*Network Neutrality*



*What’s going on?*

The European Commission originally expressed support for an “open” and
“neutral” internet, yet has never acted to inscribe this into law. In the
past months telecoms in Germany and internet service providers in France
have stopped or limited access to services from competitors in their
networks. This has lead to considerable outrage among digital rights
groups. Neelie Kroes (Commissioner for Competition), who was originally in
favour of the idea decided not to act upon the restrictions in France,
saying that packaging or throttling access is a product labelling issue,
rather than worrisome.[3]* *



*Why should we care?*

We are interested in a open and free internet guaranteeing each user the
right to access all the websites. Otherwise clients might be charged extra
money to access servers from outside their country (i.e. in Virginia) or
have different packages for different types of websites
(sports/news/multimedia) which would not be advantageous to us.

On the other hand, such a legislation would disallow zero access projects,
which might hinder free access to educational and other content, even in
cases with non-commercial intentions.



*Game plan?*

The Commission is currently planning to release non-binding
recommendations. There is a considerable debate going on whether there
should be binding legislation on the matter and whether the EU shouldn’t
leave this issue to the member states. Slovenia and the Netherlands have
already codified net neutrality as part of their national legislations.



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[1]
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/document/activities/cont/201303/20130306ATT62198/20130306ATT62198EN.pdf

[2]http://c3s.cc/index_en.html

[3]http://blogs.ec.europa.eu/neelie-kroes/netneutrality/
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