[Advocacy Advisors] Quick notes on Andrus Ansip

[Marcin Cieslak]

Dimi wrote:

> just to let you know that the second "digital" Commissioner had his
> hearing last night and to share some impressions with you. Adrus Ansip
> from Estonia is designated as Vice-President for the Digital Single
> Market.
>
> Overall he appeared well prepared and knowledgeable on the issues he
> was asked. On copyright reform, the three main points he made were
> clear enough:
>
> *Remove territoriality within the EU (meaning: harmonisation)

That can be very much bad news. The most annoying aspect of territoriality
is the way exclusive rights to certain works are granted (licences
for particular countries and areas). I don't think this can
be changed easily, because every industry may say it may
organize its sales as it wishes.

If we mean harmonization of the copyright law, this can be bad news
since unless we throw out Berne convention we will be mainly
harmonizing copyright exceptions, down to the common, possibly
lowest, denominiator.

I am mostly concerned about wide-reaching exceptions, such as
Polish rule not to copyright official materials and documents
issued by public authorities; I don't see currently how
that can be "harmonized" with models like UK's Crown Copyright.

On Tue, 7 Oct 2014, aktron at centrum.cz wrote:

> This seems interesting. At least some guy who knows the stuff... :-)

Never underestimate the power of briefing :)


//Marcin