Tag Archives: users rights

After 30 months, EU legislators agree to sell out users and creators to big platforms and big content.

Caïn venant de tuer son frère Abel, by Henry Vidal
European users and creators deserve better
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After yesterday’s agreement between the European Parliament, the Council and the European Commission on a compromise text, the EU copyright reform process has entered into its final phase. The good news is that after yesterday’s compromise the text cannot get any worse: it will either be adopted or it will be rejected. The bad news is that the text that was agreed on yesterday is **the worst version that we have seen yet**. After three days of negotiations, the negotiators have agreed on a text that would benefit big corporate rightsholders, Google and other dominant platforms at the expense of users, creators and the rest of the European internet economy.

To understand what has happened during the negotiations, it is illustrative to look at the differences between the final compromise and the text that had been agreed among the EU member states last week (which was the result of horse trading between the French and German governments).

A win for dominant platforms…

Yesterday’s compromise text is largely in line with the French-German deal. This includes a terrible version of Article 13 that will severely limit users ability to express themselves online. It will also further consolidate the power of dominant platforms, as smaller platforms will struggle with implementing expensive filtering technology and supporting the increased costs for dealing with increased liability.

It also introduces a EU-wide neighbouring right for press publishers that will have very similar effects. It benefits dominant platforms who can afford compliance while creating additional costs and risks for smaller players. As a result, users will likely end up with less access to information and the diversity of information available online will likely suffer. Under these conditions it remains to be seen if rightsholders will indeed manage to extract more value from the large intermediaries.    

…at the expense of users and creators

As if this would not be bad enough, the negotiators have introduced last minute changes to the text that further weaken provisions that were intended to protect the rights of users and individual creators. The French/German deal did not (at least not clearly) include a UGC exception for users of every online platform, but it used language that at least applied to  user-generated content uploaded to the platforms covered by Article 13. The final compromise has adopted questionable language that may or may not  provide a meaningful protection for users of platforms covered by Article 13, depending on whether Member States are obliged to fully implement the existing quotation and parody exceptions provided in the InfoSoc Directive, and make them applicable to user-generated content, which is not evident from the text. Continue reading →

Ahead of last trilogue: on balance the directive is bad for users and creators in Europe

Internet is for the peopleLicentie
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Today we are launching a new minisite called “Internet is for the people” that provides an overall assessment of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. Our assessment takes into consideration all the key parts of the Directive.

Our aim, with this project, is to present how the Directive  will either empower or hurt users and creators in the digital age. The rules that regulate creativity and sharing must be fair and take into account contemporary online activities and digital practices. Essentially, the internet needs to be for the people, and key legislation needs to be based on this principle.

In order to do this, we analysed nine different issues that are included (or have not been included) in the proposal for the Directive: Upload Filters, the Press Publishers Right, Text and Data mining, access to Cultural Heritage, Education, the protection of the Public Domain, a Right to Remix, Freedom of Panorama and Fair Remuneration for Authors and Performers. Each issue was then scored, allowing us to provide an overall score of the Directive based on an understanding of all elements of the proposal.

Too often, the Directive is reduced just to a few controversial issues: content filtering or a new right for publishers. These are clearly crucial issues, but it is important to understand that the Directive includes other rules that can also have massive effects on Europe’s research and science, education, cultural, or AI industry–just to name a few.

We decided to analyse the Directive through a particular lens: of the potential to either empower or hurt users and creators in the digital age. We are critical of views that the Directive simply attempts to regulate business relationships between two sectors, and that therefore the policy debate should be left to them. The Directive will have tremendous impact on all European citizens, who depend in all aspects of their lives on communication systems and digital tools that copyright law regulates.

The internet needs to be for the people. This means that core policies, like copyright law, need to be “for the people” by design. As our analysis shows, the final proposal for the Directive will likely be a legislative mixed bag. A range of positive developments concerning exceptions and limitations – rules that grant people the freedoms to use content for personal needs or public interest goals – are offered alongside other regulatory proposals that will have extremely adverse effects across all spheres of European society.

On Monday policy makers will have one more chance to fix some of the shortcomings of the proposed directive. Based on the current state of affairs it seems extremely unlikely that this will fundamentally alter the our negative overall assessment of the directive: Seen as a whole, the proposed Directive is bad, and will not make the internet work for European citizens.

Article 13: the house is on fire!

Brand in de lijnbanen op de schans aan de Smallepadsgracht
Lawmakers struggle to contain Article 13
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Last week, the German Council delegation shared a “non-paper” with proposals to mitigate the negative effects of article 13, which screamed “Houston, we have a problem”. On Monday the Romanian Council Presidency shared a working paper on article 13 that makes similar attempts to reduce the negative impact of article 13. And yesterday the representatives of the audiovisual and publishing sectors called for the suspension of the negotiations on article 13. These moves show that (1) upload filters are gaining opponents (or losing supporters) at a fast pace and (2) lawmakers are starting to envision the social and political consequences of this ill-conceived law proposal.

The Romanian proposal attempts to save the sharing culture, but fails spectacularly

Ahead of the Council Copyright Attachés meeting that took place yesterday, the Romanian Council Presidency proposed a possible compromise solution on article 13 that 1) exempts platforms from liability in certain situations (e.g. if they made best efforts to obtain an authorization from the rightsholders) and 2) introduces a mandatory EU-wide user-generated content exception to copyright, which allows users to upload and make available content generated by themselves, but not by others. The Romanian compromise further suggests to continue to discuss if online platforms that are microenterprises and small-sized enterprises shall be exempted or not from the obligations imposed by article 13.

The fact that the compromise solution presented by the Romanian Presidency contains the introduction of a UGC exception shows the intention to make a positive contribution to the negotiations. However, the drafting is far from bringing a meaningful solution for users. To start, the proposed exception only allows the use of parts of works, making it impossible for users to share user-generated content containing an entire artwork (e.g. a meme using a painting in its entirety) or an entire short work (e.g. a meme using a poem in its entirety). Then, it only allows users to share content generated by themselves, and not by others! What is the point of sharing a meme on an online platform, if other users cannot interact with it, by sharing it too? Continue reading →

Art 4/2 goes against CJEU landmark ruling on copyright exceptions

Untitled
Do not set a dangerous precedent for user rights!
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The Court of Justice of the European Union has not had many opportunities to review the EU legal framework for exceptions and limitations to copyright, and in the few cases where it had to interpret an EU exception, it has not always adopted positions that are favourable to the beneficiaries of the exceptions. Yet, there is one case, a landmark case for user rights, involving the Technical University of Darmstadt and publisher Eugen Ulmer KG, where the Court exemplary defended the position of such beneficiaries against the rights holders. Now the EU lawmakers want to adopt a law that fundamentally undermines the protection granted by that CJEU ruling to user rights.

How did the CJEU ruling protect user rights?

The TU Darmstadt case revolved around the EU exception that allows public libraries and other institutions to digitize works in their collections and make them available in dedicated terminals located in the libraries reading rooms or elsewhere on their premises (art.5(3)(n) of the InfoSoc Directive). The dispute had several legal issues, but the one important for the analysis of art 4, paragraph 2 of the proposed Directive for Copyright in the Digital Single Market (DSM Directive) is whether the libraries could rely on said exception even if publishers were offering to license a digital version of the books.

The EU exception embodied in art.5(3)(n) of the InfoSoc Directive covers “works and other subject-matter not subject to purchase or licensing terms”. Publishers argued that the mere fact that the rightholder offers to conclude a licensing agreement with a library is sufficient for ruling out the exception. The CJEU considered, however, that, if the mere act of offering to conclude a licensing agreement were sufficient to rule out the application of the exception, such interpretation would:

  1. Be difficult to reconcile with the aim of the exception, which is “to maintain a fair balance between the rights and interests of rightholders, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, users of protected works who wish to communicate them to the public for the purpose of research or private study undertaken by individual members of the public.”
  2. Imply that “the rightholder could, by means of a unilateral and essentially discretionary action, deny the establishment concerned the right to benefit from that limitation and thereby prevent it from realising its core mission and promoting the public interest”.
  3. Be “liable to negate much of the substance of the limitation provided for in that provision, or indeed its effectiveness”, since the limitation would apply only to those increasingly rare works of which an electronic version is not yet offered on the market.

Continue reading →

Article 13: Four principles for minimising harm to users, creators and the internet

Vrouw die een stier tracht te bedwingen
4 principles to save article 13 from killing the net
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Later today the negotiators of the Commission, the European Parliament and the Council will meet for the 4th trilogue meeting. After having dealt with less controversial parts of the proposal during the three preceding meetings, tonight, will finally see a discussion about Article 13 of the proposed DSM directive.

Given that all three legislators bring similar versions of article 13 to the table, we can expect that a final compromise text will include some version of the article 13 upload filters. There is still a good chance that the negotiations will be inconclusive or that the eventual outcome of the trilogue negotiations will not be approved by either the Member States or the Parliament (which would mean that the directive will fail and there will be no upload filtering requirement for the foreseeable future). But in the context of the ongoing trilogue, the deletion of article 13 (which has been our position so far) is not an option anymore.

This raises the question of how the damage that article 13 will do to the internet ecosystem and freedom of expression can best be contained. Before we do so let’s take a quick look at the positions that are on the table:

EP position: general blocking of all unlicensed content

The provision adopted by the European parliament can only be described as a total disaster. As the result of a misguided attempt to remove the mention of “measures” from the text of the article the European Parliament adopted a version of article 13 that makes platforms liable for copyright infringements for every single work uploaded by their users. This would include any photo, drawing or text uploaded by a user, regardless if these are old works, works that have been created for the express purpose of being shared widely, or the latest blockbuster movie. As a result of making platforms liable for all works uploaded by their users, they are practically forced to install filters that will block everything that has not been licensed to them. In other words, the EP version of article 13 would turn open platforms into platforms that distribute content licensed by the entertainment industry and nothing else. Continue reading →

SCCR/37: Communia general statement on exceptions and limitations

Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights
Let us converge and harmonise laws
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In our capacity of permanent observers of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights, we are attending the 37th session of the Committee, which is taking place in Geneva from 26 to 30 November 2018.

The following is the general statement made by Teresa Nobre on Limitations and Exceptions (Agenda Items 6 and 7):

Continue reading →

SCCR/37: Communia statement on the protection of broadcasting organizations

A woman shouting into a man's ear-trumpet. Wood engraving.
No new rights without exceptions
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In our capacity of permanent observers of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights, we are attending the 37th session of the Committee, which is taking place in Geneva from 26 to 30 November 2018.

The following is the statement made by Teresa Nobre on our behalf on agenda item 5: Protection of Broadcasting Organizations.Continue reading →

Communia endorses Treaty on Education and Research, and asks others to follow suit

Italian Landscape with Umbrella Pines
We can make education brighter
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Communia has endorsed the Civil Society Proposed Treaty on Copyright Exceptions and Limitations on Education and Research Activities (TERA), and asks others to follow suit, ahead of the 37th session of WIPO’s Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR). SCCR/37 will take place from 26 – 30 November in Geneva, and civil society advocates will propose that the treaty’s provisions be considered as a model for future text-based work by the committee.

The proposed treaty is the result of an extensive consultation process with various stakeholders (including Communia), which culminated with its adoption at the 5th Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest on September 27, 2018. Institutions and individuals are both welcome to endorse the treaty.

Continue reading →

yes. i am lonesome tonight.

Screenshot of video Licentie
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yes. i am lonesome tonight. is a video by visual artist and performer Daniel Pinheiro, and probably one of the most intelligent uses of a pre-existing work that you’ll see on social media platforms today and tomorrow. Not the day after, because copyright infringement will soon prompt its removal.

You see, some of the works created by Daniel Pinheiro rely heavily on copyrighted works that do not belong to him. yes. i am lonesome tonight. consists of a black screen in which the words “yes”, “i did”, “i’m sorry” and “i didn’t” appear as answers to the questions posed by Elvis Presley in the song “Are you lonesome tonight”, composed by Lou Handman and Roy Turk. Elvis sings “Are you lonesome tonight” and Daniel whispers “Yes”. And so it goes:

Do you miss me tonight?

Yes.

Are you sorry we drifted apart?

Yes.

Could fair use save the lonely artist?

Daniel’s intervention is minimal, from a quantitative point of view, and he uses the source work in its entirety, which would weigh against fair use, in countries where fair use exists. Yet I doubt any art curator or critic would not render it as a new and unexpected use of Elvis’ musical performance. In other words, the transformative character of yes. i am lonesome tonight. could perhaps be enough to consider this Visual-Art work a fair use, even when all the remaining statutory factors (such as the amount of the source work used) would traditionally weigh against fair use. Continue reading →

MEPs Can Still Salvage the Copyright Directive in Today’s Vote

European Parliament (before the internet)
Seven issues where MEPs can #fixcopyright
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On the 5th of July a large majority of the Members of the European Parliament voted against fast-tracking the report of its JURI committee on the Copyright in the Digital Single Market directive so that the full parliament could discuss the contents of the report and make adjustments to a number of controversial provisions. This discussion has taken place over the last few weeks and tomorrow marks the day when the European Parliament will take a final vote on the report.

On the table are a wide range of proposals to amend three of the most controversial parts of the proposed directive, as well as a number of attempts to address omissions in the original text. However, large parts of the JURI text, such as the exceptions dealing with education and access to cultural heritage, have been left untouched and will not be affected by Wednesday’s vote.

EU lawmakers will have the opportunity to agree on some meaningful improvements to the proposed directive which would then become part of the Parliament’s position for the upcoming trilogue negotiation with the European Commission and the Member States. An improved Parliament position is badly needed since the European Commission’s original plan was terribly disappointing and the Member States have adopted a position that is even worse on crucial parts of the proposed directive. In order to keep open the possibility that the EU copyright reform process will result in real improvements to the EU copyright system MEPs must:

  • Text and data mining: Vote for an expanded version of the exception for text and data mining in Article which would allow anyone to text and data mine all legally accessible copyright protected works. This would be guaranteed by a set of amendments tabled by a cross-party coalition called the Digital Agenda Intergroup. Not adopting their amendments would mean that Europe will shut itself off from an essential tool for scientific, societal and economic progress.
  • Press publishers right: Delete the unnecessary and counterproductive Article 11, but it deletion is not possible, limit the most negative effects by refusing to grant press publishers additional rights that will hinder access to knowledge. This would be guaranteed by sets of amendments proposed by the Digital Agenda Intergroup and by the Greens/EFA political group.
  • Upload filters: Ensure that the attempts to address an imaginary value gap driven by the music industry by introducing mandatory upload filters do not damage the open nature of the internet and limit the freedom of (creative) expression online. In addition to deletion of Article 13 the damage can be limited by adopting amendments proposed by the Internal Market and Consumer Protection committee or the Digital Agenda Intergroup.
  • User-generated content: Vote in favor of the new amendments that clarify that users may engage with copyrighted works through remixes, memes and other types of user-generated content (UGC). Support for UGC was indicated in the JURI recitals, but left out of the article text. There are amendments tabled the Digital Agenda Intergroup as well as several MEPs including Cavada, Reda, Adinolfi, and Maštálka.
  • Freedom of Panorama: Vote in favor of new amendments that clarify the ability for European citizens to take and share photography of artworks and architecture in public spaces (freedom of panorama). There are amendments tabled by the Digital Agenda Intergroup as well as MEPs Maštálka and Reda.
  • New rights for sports broadcasters and image search: Vote against the additional copyright protection gifted to sports events organisers snuck into the JURI report, as well as the addition of a licensing requirement for image search engines. Neither of these amendments were debated nor received a sufficient level of scrutiny by the Parliament, and both would result in substantial expansions of the scope of copyright that must be opposed given the absence of any evidence supporting such measures.
  • Support for the public domain: Vote in favor of the amendments that add a positive definition of the public domain to the EU copyright framework. Copyright law takes a big part of its legitimacy from the fact that it creates temporary exclusive rights and this fundamental principle deserves explicit recognition in EU law. MEPs should support the amendments introduced by MEP Adinolfi.