[Advocacy Advisors] Wikimedia EU Public Policy Report May 2015

[Dimitar Parvanov Dimitrov]

tl;dr
Two weeks until the committee vote that will include FoP and PDGo.
Wikimedia co-hosted a Freedom of Panorama event in the EP. That Commission
officially announced a Digital Single Market Strategy.

This and past reports: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Monitor
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Two weeks before EP committee vote on the InfoSoc (Copyright) Report>>>

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1) Looking for a new FoP compromise: After an initial rush by almost
everyone to include a non-commercial restriction to Freedom of Panorama,
there are currently only two groups left whose shadow rapporteurs demand it
- the radical left (GUE) and the liberals (ALDE). While they are nowhere
near a majority, they do make finding a compromise that suits us much
harder as they distract the conversation and demotivate the larger groups
to deal with it. We need to get the GUE to withdraw this request and a
larger group to propose a new compromise.
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2) PDGov an uphill battle: Having “public domain for public works”
explicitly mentioned in the compromise will be a tough feat to achieve.
Everyone is for “lowering barriers to public sector information” though.
We’ll get something that can be used with the Commission to push for more
free knowledge in publicly funded content, the question is what exactly.

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FoP Event by co-hosted by Wikimedia>>>
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1) What now?: Yes, we organised an expert seminar on Freedom of Panorama in
the EP. See poster: http://wmde.org/1dGHpob It was hosted by the chair of
the Legal Affairs committee Pavel Svoboda. As he is from the largest
parliamentary group, this puts the topic firmly on the political map. Apart
from this we wanted to demonstrate that we can defend our arguments in a
face-to-face public conversation with ollecting societies and authors. This
worked out quite nicely. Some pictures here: http://wmde.org/1dGXKt3

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2) Main arguments: While the collecting society representative kept saying
that it is about authors’ choice if their works should be used or not, our
representative in the panel stressed, that authors make a conscious choice
by placing their works permanently in the public space. Apart from that
nothing really new. Plenty of talk about moral rights, which we’re in no
way questioning.

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3) First concrete result: Creative Commons will have a conference call with
the European Commission to share their experience on working with NC
licensing and provide examples why this causes a lot of trouble and doesn’t
really achieve much.

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4) Second concrete result: Last time I told you about several IPR working
groups. It looks like the one lead by our all time favourite MEP Jean-Marie
Cavada (wmde.org/1EtJGLV) that we critisiced in an open letter together
with other civil society groups (wmde.org/1I0urOx) will now finally take up
the issue of FoP and have us invited. Wait and see, but this would be huge
step forward for our agenda-setting agenda.

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5) Trivia: How many exceptions/limitations to copyright have had their very
own event in the EP?

We shall draw a winner out of a tinfoil hat among everyone who answered
correctly. Prize is a surprise.

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DSM Strategy>>>

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1) Presentation of Strategy: On 6 May the Commission presented its plans on
the Digital Single Market (http://wmde.org/1FoZcHb). The whole event was
vaguely unexciting. Good news is that geo-blocking is seperate from
copyright (see communicaiton: http://wmde.org/1QjTD1G). Further good news
is that enforcement is mentioned in the last place, which hopefully means
they’ll never get around to tackling it. Also worth some thought is that
they want to re-open the Cable and Satellite Directive, which makes it
possible for European TV stations to broadcast a film over satellite to all
of the EU territory. Something that currently seems to be impossible using
internet technology. Timeline says copyright proposal before end of year,
Cable and Satellite Directive early 2016: http://wmde.org/1GgpdOA

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2) DSM Intergroup first meeting post strategy announcement: The
parliamentary group on this topic had their first meeting on the 26th. A
lot of support for the Commission but nothing concrete. Favourite quote by
UK MEP Dalton: “The Commission says it doesn't want to break existing
businesses, but this means you won't have innovation.” Other than that
we’ll take statements from relevant MEPs and try to link to to our issues.
Webstream here: http://wmde.org/1eLlcFA

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3) ITRE Meeting on DSM: On the 28th Mr. Oettinger presented the roadmap to
the EP’s Industry, Trade and Research committee. He talked plenty about
infrastructure and research, but also mentioned copyright reform and the
need to move quickly. Most MEPs seemed to agree that we need a digital
single market but appeared greatly confused about what this actually means.
Spanish conservative MEP Pilar de Castillo Vera emphasised that a single
market is fundamental and called to Commission to show more leadership on
the issue. Video: http://wmde.org/1FlQJn8

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4) Commission Orientation Debate: On 25 March the Commission gathered to
discuss the DSM strategy internally. Thanks to Freedom of Information laws
we received the document: http://wmde.org/1PZJ7ls

If nothing else, it shows some of the Commission’s internal thinking and
what made the cut compared to the official communication (
http://wmde.org/1QjTD1G).

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5) Oettinger gazing into the future: The Commissioner for Digital Economy
and Society made a bold claim about the future at the recent European
Council meeting by saying: “I would dare to suggest that tomorrow our young
people will not be reading newspapers on paper, but they will be using
their smartphones and their tablets to read the contents of the
newspapers."  Video: http://wmde.org/1HGTe50

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Anti (c) reform coalition announced in the UK: Yes, we can finally assign
at least one official name to the anti-copyright reform coalition. When
NBCUniversal teams up with the BBC we should be worried on so many
different levels. Citation needed? Here you go: “We are absolutely of one
mind that this is probably the single biggest threat to our ability to make
high-quality content in the UK.” Plenty more of this to come. Enjoy:
http://wmde.org/1FP3nOU

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Draft Report on Human Rights and Technology: The report (
http://wmde.org/1eLmdNZ) by liberal Dutch MEP Marietje Schaake on “Human
rights and technology: the impact of intrusion and surveillance systems on
human rights in third countries” passed in the Foreign Affairs committee
with 33 votes in favour, 6 against and 24 abstentions. Huge amount of
abstentions, guess they didn’t have the courage to vote against. Can be
used to argue that surveillance systems are violating human rights.

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Takedown rules mulled over by EU Commission: Not a hot topic currently but
the European Commission might look into writing up more precise online
“notice and takedown” rules (http://wmde.org/1M45xw5). Our 30-second
analysis: We shouldn’t let ourselves get distracted by this. As long as no
one re-opens any directives we’re on the safe side. If this really happens,
we should look into a solution similar to the US DMCA rules, but need not
to be overly concerned, as our servers are over the big pond.

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Call for action>>>

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1) Wikimedia Public Policy Movement Goals: Brainstorming here:
http://wmde.org/1GRG0GB. At Wikimania we’d like be able to have an informed
and focused conversation on specific asks. Let’s show we’re a movement that
can open and close complex discussions within a manageable timeframe.

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2) 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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