[Advocacy Advisors] Wikimedia EU Public Policy Report April 2015

Thu Apr 30 11:52:51 UTC 2015

Wikimedia EU Public Policy Report April 2015

Since Politico has launched a Brussels version (wmde.org/1JbgQ3Y), I was
tempted to test their ticker-like newsletter style. This means shorter
articles and less structure. I get the sense that people find it
increasingly challenging to read 4 pages full of longer paragraphs on
mailing lists. Instead they need to be able to quickly skip to bits that
interest them. Let me know what you think! I may stick with the format if
it proves popular.

Dimi

tl;dr
Vote on “Reda Report” postponed by more than a month. FoP is looking good.
PDGov is a toss-up.

This and past reports: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Monitor

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EP’s Copyright Directive Implementation Report (a.k.a. Reda Report)>>>

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1) Report Vote Postponed: The Committee vote on the report has been
postponed by more than a month. New indicative dates are 15-16 June for the
Legal Affairs committee and 6-9 July for the plenary vote. Reasons are
manifold and include complexity of subject matter, uneasy compromises and
elections in the UK and Poland. This gives us a chance to work on PDGov,
but also opens the doors for a counter-effort. In general we have
convincing arguments but less “firing power”, so extra time can be both a
blessing and a curse.
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2) Compromises on FoP and PDGov: The MEPs have been pottering around for
weeks and it looks like “non-commercial” for FoP is largely gone, although
still asked for by a some. Getting French Conservatives to drop this demand
would be especially helpful. PDGov is more challenging. The EP will most
likely call the Commission to lower barriers, but it remains an open
question if it will explicitly mention PDGov itself. Assuring support from
Spanish, Italian and German Socialists plus anyone from the UK would be a
priority. Many national governments, like the UK, have invested in a
home-grown “open license” and see this proposal as something that competes
with their beloved initiatives.

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3) ITRE’s opinion: The Industry, Research and Technology Committee adopted
an opinion on the Reda Report calling for shortening copyright terms and
safeguarding the public domain. It also stresses that exceptions and
limitations are an integral part of any copyright framework.
wmde.org/1JbgKcC
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4) CULT has no opinion: In contrast to ITRE, the Culture Committee failed
to accept its opinion by one vote. What this means is not clear, confusion
in the room was mounting to a point where MEPs didn’t even know which
paragraphs they were voting on. Before shooting itself in the foot, the
Committee passed PDGov by a two vote majority and voted down FoP by one. A
clear toss-up that shows how close we are to changing outcomes or failing
at it. Notes by [[User:Nemo_bis]] wmde.org/1DE8Za2

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5) Copyfraud, linking: Other than our core issues, safeguarding the public
domain and making sure we’re not liable for links that appear on our
websites would definitely be things to look out for. We’re not exactly
hopeful, but reaching compromises that don’t go into the completely wrong
direction is not entirely impossible. Communia is focusing on safeguarding
the PD, while Mozilla will zero in on linking. From our side, I was given
useful copyfraud examples on the WMFR lobbying list wmde.org/1OHNLDZ

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6) Opposition forming: Rumours of several anti-reform coalitions are making
the round here. Chitchats like “the biggest pro-copyright coalition since
the 1990s” are becoming water cooler hits in the Commission, the Parliament
and among reporters.  There’s nothing official to pin this to, so we don’t
know if this is a bluff or an actual threat. Keep your eyes open for any
coordinated pro-copyright messages. wmde.org/1Q1IFQb

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New IPR Working Group: The Internal Market Committee of the EP has formed
another copyright working group (wmde.org/1zsZFuV). This one seems to be
much more balanced than the one lead by our all time favourite MEP
Jean-Marie Cavada (wmde.org/1EtJGLV). We did join an open letter calling
for a balanced representation on the latter (wmde.org/1I0urOx).

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DSM Strategy: On 6 May the Commission will present its plans on the Digital
Single Market (wmde.org/1P9zSJG). This is supposed to vaguely encompass
everything “digital” and more precisely include details on copyright,
telecoms, VAT, funding and more. The leaks so far have revealed lackluster
plans (wmde.org/1HTSayg), but we still expect the Commission to go for
harmonising a few exceptions and are trying to get into position by having
the EP endorse our asks and engaging the Commission on a weekly basis.
Meanwhile, everyone else has also been firing away (e.g. wmde.org/1FzCFLI &
wmde.org/1Jblf6Q) while an unambitious DG Connect cabinet would obviously
prefer to deal with pretty much anything else.

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Mozilla to join Brussels Advocacy Efforts: After hiring the former
AccessNow Policy Director (wmde.org/1EtPGEf), the folks at Mozilla are
getting serious about their EU advocacy work. They will hire someone in
Brussels to represent them and work on “innovation” and “not breaking the
internet”. Perhaps the OKFN, now under new leadership (wmde.org/1zt3znE),
wants to follow suit?

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Attempts to unfreeze Net Neutrality: There has been some activity by the
Commission to get the blocked net neutrality legislation going. After the
Parliament passed on the dossier with strong NN protections, it has been
stalled by the Member States in the Council. As for WP:0 - the Commission
and Council proposals would allow it, the EP’s wouldn’t. It’s now all up to
the compromises in the trialogue wmde.org/1OHWaYg

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Shameless self-promotion>>>

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1) FoP Event by co-hosted by Wikimedia: The chair of the Legal Affairs
Committee Pavel Svoboda has agree to host a Freedom of Panorama workshop
for us in the European Parliament on the 27th of May between 9-11. Him
being part of the largest group, this makes for a good chance to position
FoP as an accepted mainstream compromise. John Weitzmann from Creative
Commons will represent the civil society side while Prof. Guiseppe
Mazziotti from Trinity College Dublin will be the academic voice.
Commission and industry representatives TBC. Draft poster wmde.org/1DYg2uW

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2) Italian digital hero [[User:Nemo]] first Visiting Weasel in Brussels:
 All you need to know is in the blog post wmde.org/1zt6fBF

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3) NGO Strategy Lunch and WM Salon on copyright reform in Berlin: Next
Friday we’re going at it in Germany. First a NGO strategy lunch (
wmde.org/1JCUg7M) in order to establish closer ties with “traditional” NGOs
like Amnesty International, HumanRightsWatch and Reporters Without Borders
and then a discussion on copyright reform (wmde.org/abc-salon).

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Call for action>>>

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1) Call for callers: If you haven’t participated in our FoP and PDGov
advocacy campaign so far and would like to speak your mind to a politician
in a structured and well-articulated manner, react on or off-list.

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2) Revamping on Meta-Wiki: We need someone to help us restructure parts of
the EU Policy Meta-Wiki Page (http://wmde.org/1DMp8f9). Probably 10-15
minutes of work for more experienced coders.

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3) Layout of short&simple brochures: Graphic design is your thing? We would
like to have three brochures on our EU Policy goals and wouldn’t mind them
to boost appealing looks.

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