tl;dr
The European Commission is running a consultation on intermediary
liability, in France and Belgium FoP is becoming a national topic and this
year’s Big FAT Brussels Meeting will take place on the 20-21 November.
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This and past reports:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Monitor
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Platforms Consultation: The European Commission has launched its “Public
consultation on the regulatory environment for platforms, online
intermediaries, data and cloud computing and the collaborative economy”.
[1] We shall simply call it the “platforms consultation”. It deals with
intermediary liability (copyright and use of data) as well as platforms’
market position as they potentially control the access points. The
consultation will run for at least 12 weeks after it has been published in
all official EU languages, which has not happened yet.
We will draft answers on Meta-Wiki. [2] Please participate!
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State of the Union (yet another): Nothing in-depth, of course, but
Jean-Claude Juncker did manage to bring in the terms “copyright reform” and
“Digital Single Market” in a speech otherwise dedicated to do-or-die
European issues like refugees, Great Britain (not) leaving the EU and
Greece (not) leaving the Eurozone. This does peg it pretty high up on the
agenda. [3]
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EU-US Umbrella Agreement on Data Protection: An agreement that sets out
rules for future data protection agreements has been reached. [4] This
agreement isn’t legislation on its own, but its principles will be included
in future laws and treaties. Once the U.S. Congress passes such a bill, it
will give individual Europeans a right to sue federal agencies that misuse
their data.
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GDPR: Remember the General Data Protection Regulation? A major dossier that
was supposed to be passed last legislative term in order to updates
Europe’s data protection rules that were conceived in the late 90s before
everyone started collecting data on everything online. Terms like “right to
be forgotten” and “data sovereignty” were part of the negotiations. Things
are still in a state of constant limbo, but there has been a trialogue
(talks between the Commission, Council and Parliament) and a political
agreement seems possible by… let’s guess... January. One major issue still
to solve is whether consent for data collection should explicit or
unambiguous.
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FOP - Parliamentary Questions: Our #saveFoP campaign was successful, but
the results for the Reda Report were anticlimactic. No Freedom of Panorama
was included in the final version. [5] Good news is that the topic remained
hot with a number of MEPs asking parliamentary questions (a tool they have
to poke the Commission on certain topics). Even better, it wasn’t only one
group or country filing them: Victor Negrescu (S&D, RO) [6], Marc Tarabella
(S&D, BE) [7], Frédérique Ries (ALDE, BE) [8] and Mike Hookem (EFDD, UK)
[9].
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FOP - French amendment proposal: Wikimédia France has filed a Freedom of
Panorama amendment proposal to the French “digital republic” draft law.
[10] Any kind of (social) media promotion is welcome, especially by people
speaking French.
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FOP - Belgium on the move: The Belgian parties of the ALDE Group in the
European Parliament who have supported our #saveFoP campaign have now taken
it a step further. As they are both part in the current coalition
government, they have proposed national Freedom of Panorama exception. [11]
A Wikimedia Belgium working group will attempt to assist the process.
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EU Policy Meet-up: Yes, we will meet this year! The dates are 20 and 21
November and will will try to convert our 5 global goals into European
priorities and an agenda. [12]
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Recommended reading: Stevie Benton from Wikimedia UK, an indispensable part
of our #saveFoP campaign, wrote a learning pattern on campaigning on
political issues. [Stevie] Highly recommended!
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[1]
https://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/news/public-consultation-regulatory-…
[
2]https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Platforms_Consultation
[3]http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-15-5614_en.htm
[4]
http://statewatch.org/news/2015/sep/eu-us-umbrella-agreement-full-text.pdf
[5]
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=TA&reference=P8-TA-2…
[6]
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-%2f%2fEP%2f%2fTEXT%2b…
[7]
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-%2f%2fEP%2f%2fTEXT%2b…
[8]
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-%2f%2fEP%2f%2fTEXT%2b…
[9]
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-%2f%2fEP%2f%2fTEXT%2b…
[10]
https://www.republique-numerique.fr/consultations/projet-de-loi-numerique/c…
[11]
http://www.lesoir.be/958660/article/actualite/fil-info/fil-info-belgique/20…
[12]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Big_Fat_Brussels_Meeting_-_Episod…
[13]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Learning_patterns/How_to_campaign_on…