Author Archives: Communia Association

European Parliament to vote on copyright reform mandate this week – who’s voice will matter?

European Parliament (before the internet)
Can the EU Parliament #saveyourinternet?
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As the members of the European Parliament make their way to Strasbourg for the final plenary before the summer break, here is a reminder of what is at stake when they will vote on the JURI report on the proposed copyright directive this Thursday. Formally they will be voting to approve (or reject) the negotiation mandate the JURI members had given themselves on the 20th of June which, allows MEP Voss to start negotiating the final text of the directive with the Member States and the European Commission. As we wrote earlier the negotiation mandate is highly problematic as it embraces both the publishers right (“link tax”) and a requirement for open platforms to filter all user uploads (“censorship filters”). Both of these articles, which are pushed for by large rightsholders to give them more control over the content that they distribute, undermine important principles of the Internet and will cause significant damage to the much wider online environment.

In other words, the question that MEPs will have to decide this week, is if we accept the fact that fundamental principles of the Internet get thrown overboard at the request of particular industries who stand to benefit from such a move, even if it is clear that everybody else will be worse off as a result. Over the past weeks it has become clear that people are not happy with this prospect. MEPs have been overwhelmed with angry mails from Internet users, online creators have warned about the end of certain forms of creativity, people have taken to the streets in more than 30 places across Europe and more than 145 civil society organisations once again confirmed their opposition to the proposed measures.

In the light of these massive protests, the music industry which is the driving force behind the Article 13 upload filters is in damage control mode trying to downplay the effects of the measures it is calling for. Their fairly ridiculous attempt to position article 13 as “pro memes and mashups” was quickly debunked on social media and by European copyright scholars. The fact that scholarly opinion on the proposed changes, which largely overlaps with the perception by users, has been completely ignored by the members of the JURI committee is one of the driving forces behind the attempt to stop the JURI negotiation mandate this week.

So who is in favour of the measures approved by JURI and who is against them? Who should European lawmakers listen to when it comes to deciding on changes to the copyright regime that will have far-reaching effects for users, creators and businesses alike?

In favor of the JURI mandate: The position adopted by the Legal Affairs committee is supported by pretty much any organisation representing rightsholders and professional creators that is active in Brussels.

Against the JURI mandate: On the other side of the Debate we find the Civil Liberties and Consumer Protection committee of the European Parliament (both of which had adopted a more reasonable version of Article 13), more than 50 civil liberties organisations, organisations representing technology startups and software developers who all stand to lose from the proposed measures. Equally important are the warning voices coming from academics at Europe’s leading IP research centers, a group of the original architects of the Internet, the United Nation’s special rapporteur on the freedom of expression. Other critical voices come from creators, the Wikipedia community and hundreds of thousands of Internet users who have been contacting their MEPs via saveyourinternet.eu (and other platforms).

Most of these voices have been ignored by the debate in the JURI committee which has shown a particular disregard for independent expertise throughout the process. It is now up to all members of the European Parliament to decide if the Parliament should enter into negotiations with the Member States and the Commission based on the narrow view taken by the members of the JURI committee or on a view that takes these voices into account.

Legal affairs committee sells out user rights to big content & big tech.

Nederlaag van de titanen
but you can still #SaveYourInternet
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This morning the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament voted on the report on the proposed Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive. The results are in and they are not pretty: MEPs have adopted Article 13 which would force open platforms operating in Europe to install upload filters. They have also adopted the controversial press publishers right (art 11). As a bonus to rightsholders they granted more rights to “sports event organisers” and adopted a provision intended to force image search engines to pay for displaying thumbnail images as search results.

This amounts to a massive power grab by rightsholders who will enjoy much more control over how we use the Internet to communicate, share, create and inform ourselves. It is a big step away from an open Internet towards an Internet that functions as a distribution channel for mainstream culture. It is a huge loss for European cultural diversity and the freedom of expression online.

It is telling that the MEPs in the JURI committee have also voted against all attempts to give users more rights. Proposals to introduce EU wide freedom of panorama and to allow the use of protected works in User Generated Content (both of which would merely bring the law in line with reality) were voted down. The MEPs adopted a number of small improvements for users in the fields of education, access to cultural heritage and with regards to Text and Data Mining but most of these come with significant drawbacks.

The education exception contains a license priority clause that allows rightsholders to turn off the exception and dictate problematic licensing terms to educational users, which creates a dangerous precedent for users’ rights and goes against the CJEU ruling on this issue.

The Text and Data Mining (TDM) exception is limited to scientific research purposes only. The expansion that would open TDM to everyone for every purpose (which is crucial for the development of technologies such as artificial intelligence in the EU) is merely optional and will not apply across the EU as a whole.

Taken as a whole, the JURI committee’s vote shows an utter disregard for the rights of citizens in the digital environment. It is telling that both the Civil Liberties and the Consumer Protection committees have prepared much more balanced reports that have been completely ignored by the members of the Legal Affairs committee. This shows that lawmakers still treat the rights and interests of citizens and creators as spare change in the the fight between big content and big tech.

Today’s round has clearly gone to ‘big content’ in spite of warnings from pretty much anyone other than the rightsholders that this outcome will have disastrous consequences for the open Internet and our freedom of speech. Citizens’ freedom of expression should not be the function of an arrangement between rightsholders and big technology companies. It is a right that needs to be defended on its own merits and it is extremely worrisome that EU lawmakers have effectively decided to give big technology companies – that are based outside of the EU –  the responsibility to decide how European citizens can express themselves online.

We will continue to fight for the rights of users and creators and to oppose the censorship machine. The first step will be to convince enough MEPs that a decision to sell out citizens rights to big content and big tech merits a decision by the whole European Parliament:

Three things the European Parliament needs to do to #fixcopyright tomorrow

European Parliament (before the internet)
Tell your MEP to #fixcopyright tomorrow!
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Tomorrow the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament (JURI) will finally vote on the proposed Copyright in the Digital Single Market proposal. The outcome of this vote will define the European Parliament’s negotiation position as it enters into trilogue negotiations with the European Commission and the Council. Although more than a thousand amendments have been proposed, it is clear that the European Parliament has missed the chance to demand a forward-looking copyright reform that empowers Internet users and creators and improves access to culture and information. With an eye on tomorrow’s votes, these are the three immediate challenges facing the members of the JURI committee:

#1 Save the Internet

For more than a year the discussion in the European Parliament has narrowed down on a number of key topics. The most attention has gone to those areas where the ideas introduced by the European Commission have the potential to break the open Internet and limit freedom of expression and  the free access to information. Both Articles 11 and 13 remain hotly contested to this very moment and it is important that you continue to tell the members of the JURI committee to Save Your Internet by voting against the compromise proposals proposed by the Rapporteur, Axel Voss, and support the alternative compromises proposed by the Greens instead.

#2 Expand user rights and protect the Public Domain

On a more positive note there are a number of issues where the JURI MEPs can make a positive difference. The Commission’s proposal was a huge disappointment with regard to empowering users and protecting the Public Domain but members of Parliament have worked hard to put proposals up for vote that would correct this. During tomorrow’s vote the JURI MEPs should vote for the alternative compromise amendments that would introduce Europe-wide exceptions allowing anyone to take and share pictures of artworks located in public spaces (the so-called freedom of panorama) and to use pre-existing works in remixes and other forms of “user generated content”. In addition, MEPs should vote in favor of the compromise amendments on articles 7-9 that strengthen the proposed mechanism that would allow cultural heritage institutions to make available out of commerce works. Lastly, the compromise amendment for article 5 contains a recognition of the principle that reproductions of works in the public domain should stay in the public domain.

#3 Fix the most glaring flaws of the Commission proposal

Finally, there are a number of issues where the Commission’s proposal was severely lacking and where the members of Parliament have not managed to put forward a response that fixes these flaws. As proposed by the European Commission, both the exception for Text and data Mining and the exception for education were at best mixed blessings and, unfortunately, the Parliament has not found a way to fully address their shortcomings.

The proposed optional exception for TDM that applies only if the right has not been reserved does not constitute more than a band-aid on the gaping wound caused by the Commission’s proposal for an limited exception (that, in effect, prevents anyone except researchers from engaging in Text and data mining). Given that there are no more substantial solutions on the table we still encourage MEPs to vote for the compromise amendments on articles 3 and 3a even though we are convinced that the only sensible option is to embrace “the right to read is the right to mine” approach.  

With regards to the education exception, the European Parliament’s compromise amendment fails to address the core shortcoming of the Commission’s proposal. The new mandatory exception should improve the very fragmented existing legal framework in the EU and benefit learners and educators alike. Unfortunately, the compromise amendment up for vote tomorrow leaves intact the licensing override that will negate the purpose of having a mandatory exception. We will continue to advocate for limiting reliance on licensing as a method to ensure access to educational materials. It has become clear from our own research that licenses do not benefit education. They impose burdensome obligations on schools and include unfair or even abusive terms.

Time is running out to tell the MEPs in JURI to act. Tell them to back stronger exceptions, safeguard the public domain and save the Internet via saveyourinternet.eu or changecopyright.org now!

More and more experts warn of the dangers of Article 13 upload filters

EU vs the InternetLicentie
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With the discussion of the EU copyright reform proposal in full swing (see #SaveYourInternet on twitter) ahead of next week’s vote in the European Parliament, more and more experts are coming out to warn about the negative consequences of Article 13 of the proposed directive.

On Tuesday this week a group of more than 70 people who have played important roles in building the internet and developing it into the vibrant cultural space that it is today came out with an open letter addressed to the members of the European Parliament. Tim Berners-Lee, Vincent Cerf, Mitchell Baker, Jimmy Wales and 70 others write:

As creators ourselves, we share the concern that there should be a fair distribution of revenues from the online use of copyright works, that benefits creators, publishers, and platforms alike.

But Article 13 is not the right way to achieve this. By requiring Internet platforms to perform automatic filtering all of the content that their users upload, Article 13 takes an unprecedented step towards the transformation of the Internet from an open platform for sharing and innovation, into a tool for the automated surveillance and control of its users. […] The damage that this may do to the free and open Internet as we know it is hard to predict, but in our opinions could be substantial.

This leads them to the same conclusion that we had arrived at in our analysis of Article 13. The most sensible way to deal with Article 13 is to delete it entirely:

We cannot support Article 13, which would mandate Internet platforms to embed an automated infrastructure for monitoring and censorship deep into their networks. For the sake of the Internet’s future, we urge you to vote for the deletion of this proposal.

On Wednesday David Kaye, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression, followed up with a letter that raises similar concerns with Article 13. Specifically, Kaye is troubled that Article 13 “would establish a regime of active monitoring and prior censorship of user-generated content that is inconsistent with Article 19(3) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.” The opinion of the Special Rapporteur is an important voice from an organisation that does not have a direct stake in this discussion and should therefore be considered seriously by lawmakers. From the letter:

Article 13 of the proposed Directive appears likely to incentivize content-sharing providers to restrict at the point of upload user-generated content that is perfectly legitimate and lawful […] the restriction of user-generated content before its publication subjects users to restrictions on freedom of expression without prior judicial review of the legality, necessity and proportionality of such restrictions. Exacerbating these concerns is the reality that content filtering technologies are not equipped to perform context-sensitive interpretations of the valid scope of limitations and exceptions to copyright, such as fair comment or reporting, teaching, criticism, satire and parody.

As we have argued before it would be irresponsible of the Parliament to sell out the freedom of expression, education and access to culture and information to the business interests of the publishing and entertainment industries. By now it pretty clear than Article 13 is considered a real danger by pretty much anyone except the entertainment industry which concocted this legislative monstrosity. It’s high time for MEPs to recognize that they are being led into a direction that will do grave harm to freedom of expression, the digital economy in the EU, and the internet as a medium for vibrant cultural exchange.

To help, send your MEPs an email, tweet, or phone call before the June 20 JURI vote (as in RIGHT NOW!) and tell them to delete Article 13 once and for all.

Launched: copyrightforeducation.eu

c4edLicentie
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Today, COMMUNIA launches the copyrightforeducation.eu website, asking for support for a better copyright for education. Let’s raise our voices and spread the word now, so that we can influence our legislators in creating a better copyright law for education.

What you can find in our new website

We believe in policy decisions that are based on evidence. On copyrightforeducation.eu you can find all the studies that we have been conducting in the past years on the issues of copyright and education:

  • Our study that shows that copyright laws in Europe are too fragmented and, thus, lead to inequality among European students, create legal uncertainty for teachers, and limit cross-border collaboration.
  • Our study that shows that most of these laws are too narrow, preventing educational activities that take place everyday in schools all over Europe, such as the use of an entire image in an educational resource or the screening of a film in class.
  • Our study that shows that licenses restrict the scope of protection of the educational exceptions, grant questionable rights to rightholders and impose burdensome obligations on schools. Therefore, the EU proposal, which prevents copyrighted materials from being used under the education exception from the moment that such materials become easily available in the market under a licence, is a bad solution.
  • Documentation showing that educators support a good solution for copyright, in other words, a mandatory exception that cannot be overridden by contracts or licenses, that facilitates cross border use, and does not oblige Member States to provide for remuneration for each and every use of copyrighted materials for educational purposes.

We need to act NOW

A vote will soon take place on the shape of European copyright law. European legislators listen mainly to the voice of copyright rightsholders. We need to change that now.

We are asking for a law that grants educators and learners freedom to use copyrighted content. Educators should not be forced to rely on licenses, which spell new costs and burdens.

Those who teach, learn and create, exchange information for the benefit of European society. They deserve a copyright framework that enables them to provide modern, innovative education. Education fit for the Europe of the 21st century.

Copyright needs to be reshaped in order to facilitate modern education which spans the lives of learners, and takes place in a variety of formal and informal settings, online as well as offline.

European educators and learners need an education exception that is mandatory and cannot be overridden by contracts or licenses.

Educators should not need to be lawyers to understand what they can and cannot do. We believe in transparency. Educators would benefit from an education exception on which educators can rely across the European Union. This would create legal certainty for educators.

What you can do to help

Please visit the website copyrightforeducation.eu and if you support a better copyright for education, act now:

– Reach out to your MEP https://voxscientia.eu/call-to-action/
– Sign up for our newsletter on Education and Copyright
– Contact us at education@communia-association.org

Take action now and tell the European Parliament to #SaveYourInternet

European Parliament selling out user rightsLicentie
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On 20 June, (8 days from now) the Legal Affairs committee of European Parliament (JURI) will finally vote on the proposed Copyright in the Digital Single Market directive. After more than one and a half years of discussions a lot is at stake in this vote. That is why we are joining forces with other civil society organisations from across Europe for the #SaveYourInternet action day. The purpose of this day is simple: we need to tell Members of the European Parliament that they cannot afford to sell out freedom of expression, education and access to culture and information to the business interests of the publishing and entertainment industries.

If you care about the open Internet and a world in which the interests of rightsholders are not privileged above education, research and access to culture, you need to act now. Get in touch with the Members of Parliament (MEPs) who will vote in these issues and let them know what you think. At www.saveyourinternet.eu you find a range of tools that make it easy to tweet at, mail or call them (of these three options calling is the most effective method).

Tell your MEP that you do object to the introduction of automated censorship filters that would cripple open internet platforms, that you find it unacceptable that press publishers get granted rights that they can use to limit access to online information and that Europe needs to embrace innovative technologies (such as text and data mining) instead of limiting them. Instead MEPs should stand for the interests of the citizens that they represent by demanding robust exceptions to copyright that unlock the power of the Internet for education and access to the collections of cultural heritage institutions.

With the Commission’s proposal for the DSM directive lacking in all these aspects, and the Member States having embraced the Commission’s approach, the European Parliament is our only hope of preventing this disastrous proposal from becoming reality. We have a week left to convince MEPs that they must not sacrifice the interests of users and creators across Europe to the business interests of publishers and entertainment companies. So head over towww.saveyourinternet.eu today (or use the form below) to make your voice heard!

Can Voss salvage the text and data mining exception?

Shipwreck off a Rocky Coast
Rescuing TDM from the reform wreckage?
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Last week’s big news was dominated by the agreement from COREPER on a negotiating mandate for the proposed Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. The verdict: Member States have agreed on a text that fails to address the biggest shortcomings of the Commission’s proposal, and in a number of ways actually makes it worse.

But recently Rapporteur MEP Axel Voss also published a his first proposal for a compromise amendment on Article 3, the exception for text and data mining (TDM).

Since the release of the original Commission proposal, we’ve criticised the TDM exception as not going far enough to achieve its intended objectives, because it would limit the beneficiaries of the exception only to research organisations, and only for purposes of scientific research. While there were interesting amendments floated by a few of the Parliamentary committees, it seems that few of the progressive changes have been seriously considered by JURI.

In parallel, the Council presidencies have not done anything that would significantly improve the situation, either, with their main contribution being the introduction of an optional provision, often referred to as “3a”. This additional arrangement would cover TDM activities that fall under temporary reproductions and extractions, and would apply to beneficiaries beyond research organisations, and for uses other than scientific research. But those acts would be limited in that they only apply for works for which rights holders are not explicitly prohibiting such uses.

Voss’ compromise amendment is a mashup of Article 3 of the Commission’s proposal and Article 3a of the Council text. In opposition to his approach in many other areas, the changes here seem to be a reasonable attempt at arriving at a compromise between those who agree with the Commission’s original narrow approach and those (like us) — who argue for a much broader exception that allows anyone to engage in text and data mining for any purpose. The devil of course is in the details of the proposed text.

Continue reading →

Here is an alternative version of Article 13 that the European Parliament should support

Aanval van de Giganten op de godenwereld
Parliament must defend internet users' rights
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Last week we pointed out that when it comes to Article 13 both the version discussed (and since adopted) by the Member States in the Council and the compromise proposals discussed in the European Parliament’s JURI Committee are pretty terrible. In light of the negotiation mandate adopted by the Member States last week the only real option preventing mandatory censorship filters from becoming a reality for internet users in the EU is the European Parliament’s adoption of a position that renounces such filters, or (at the very least) ensures that any efforts to filter respect the fundamental rights of EU internet users.  

Unfortunately, the direction of the discussions in the JURI Committee clearly point toward an EP position that would support mandatory upload filters. In this situation, it is important to remember that for almost a year, the European Parliament has been sitting on an opinion from the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) Committee that would limit the negative effects of Article 13. Since then, the text of the IMCO opinion, adopted on the 8th of June 2017 (!), has also been adopted by the Civil Liberties (LIBE) Committee.

Persuant to the European Parliament’s procedural rules, both LIBE and IMCO are associated committees. This means that their versions should form the basis of the discussions in the Legal Affairs Committee. Yet the difference between the current compromise proposed by MEP Voss and the IMCO/LIBE text could not be greater. This becomes evident when comparing the internal logic of the JURI/LIBE version (flowchart below) with a flowchart depicting the internal logic of the JURI version (see here):  

Continue reading →

Member States adopt negotiation position, side with rightsholders in attack on user rights

Caïn venant de tuer son frère Abel, by Henry Vidal
Will Parliament step up to defend user rights?
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Last Friday the Committee of Permanent representatives of the Council (COREPER) agreed on a negotiating mandate for the proposed Copyright in the Digital Single Market directive. The agreed upon text does not substantially differ from the latest compromise proposals that we have discussed here before. Unfortunately that means that the Member States have agreed on text that fails to address the biggest shortcomings of the Commission’s proposal and in a number of cases actually makes it worse.

The result is a version of the Commission’s proposal that is even more out of balance than the original. The rights-holder lobby has managed to capture the Member States to advance their agenda to the detriment of the interests of internet users in the EU and in complete disregard of the original intention to further harmonise the fragmented EU copyright rules:

  • Over the past one and a half years the Member States, driven by a mediterranean maximalist coalition (France, Italy, Spain and Portugal) have doubled down on the Commission’s highly problematic proposal to impose upload filters for open internet platforms. As we have explained here, the version of Article 13 adopted by the Member States would create a new parallel liability regime that puts the creative expression of platform users at the mercy of a censorship machine run by platform operators in collusion with rightsholders.
  • Driven by the same mediterranean maximalist coalition the Member States have insisted on a narrow, innovation-hostile exception for Text and Data Mining. This approach flies in the face of the EU wide ambition to become an important player in the area of machine learning and artificial intelligence. At the insistence of more forward-looking Member States the Council text also includes an optional exception that allows TDM for a wider set of purposes and beneficiaries, but this comes at the cost of further splintering user rights in the EU.
  • Under intense pressure from Germany the Member States have maintained the introduction of a new ancillary copyright for press publishers against a near-universal academic consensus that such a right will endanger the freedom of information without benefitting press publishers. In a small improvement of the Commission’s proposal the new right would now last for a maximum of 2 years and would not apply retroactively.

There are a few areas where the Member States are proposing improvements to the Commission’s proposal (such as a more streamlined process that would allow cultural heritage institutions to make out-of-commerce works available online, and a new, albeit optional, paragraph providing a legal basis for extended collective licensing) but in general the Member States have missed the opportunity to fix the Commission’s flawed original proposal. Continue reading →

As Council & Parliament edge towards finalizing positions, Article 13 remains a mess

Closeup of Art 13 flowchart
Art.13 in 3 flowcharts
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As the summer break draws closer both the European Parliament and the Council are intensifying their efforts to wrap up their positions on the proposed Copyright in the Digital Single Market directive. In both legislative bodies Article 13 (the upload filters for online platforms) remains the main stumbling block and both the Bulgarian Council presidency and the EPs rapporteur (MEP Voss) have have set deadlines this week to wrap up the discussion on Article 13.

Last week (after yet another inconclusive meeting on Article 13) MEP Voss has asked the political groups to provide him their final written comments “on the MAIN and MOST IMPORTANT open issues” by Wednesday the 23rd. On the same date the Bulgarian Council presidency has scheduled an attaché meeting to discuss the latest compromise proposal.

In the light of these (final?) attempts to wrap up the discussion it is important to take another look at how the discussion has evolved since the Commission published its proposal and how the 3 different versions of Article 13 compare to each other. In order to do so we have analysed the internal logic of the Commission proposal, the last Bulgarian compromise proposal and version 6 of the European Parliament’s Legal Affairs committee compromise text and depicted the most important elements in a series of flowcharts (see below). Even a casual glance at these makes it clear that both the Council’s and the Parliament’s changes to the text have resulted in vastly more complex versions.

Commission proposal: Simple language that creates a legal mess with lots of uncertainties.

Compared to the other two versions the Commission’s proposal is a thing of beauty. The article consists of three relatively concise paragraphs which results in a relatively straightforward flowchart: Continue reading →