Europe is changing copyright and related legislation

If you plan to send your feet to Europe and want to protect the know-how, then this article may probably interest you. Discussions are continuing in the EU about the modernization of legislation in the field of copyright and related rights, which should contribute to the effective functioning of a single digital market, the strategy of which was introduced in 2015. This proposal is due to the need to bring legislation in this area to a level consistent with the rules of the digital age.

Proponents of the reform say that the project will help European creative companies to actively develop in the Digital Single Market, and it will be easier for European authors to find a new audience not only in the EU, but also beyond.
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So, according to the official website of the unified digital market ( Digital Single Market ), the main objectives of this proposal are: free cross-border access to online content in the EU; ample opportunities to use copyrighted materials in the field of education, scientific research and cultural heritage; improving the functioning of the copyright market; an increase in the number of materials for the visually impaired and people with limited ability to perceive printed information. The idea of ​​the project is to provide a balance between copyright and relevant public policy objectives: education, research, innovation and the needs of people with disabilities.

In general, experts support the proposal for reform, and the European Copyright Society even points out that the proposed reform package will help solve a number of current legislation problems identified by the Society.

It sounds quite encouraging and acceptable to the existing society, but in addition to all the praise there are also pitfalls that cause disagreement.

You can familiarize yourself with the essence of the changes and suggestions by reading the article of another author following the link . And in my own article I would like to tell exactly about the controversial points of this reform, based on the document published by the European Copyright Society regarding this reform, and on various interviews.

Lack of ambition

Despite the ambitious goals and fundamental objectives set out in the preamble of the Directive, the reform package proposed by the Commission does not reflect a coherent vision of the future development of copyright in the European Union. The proposed reforms imply partial solutions that are not adapted to some of the already existing and outdated problems.

Such a narrow approach is manifested in the proposals on the legal protection of authors and performers, as well as in the Provisions on exceptions. For example, according to Article 5, copying cultural heritage objects is allowed only for the purpose of their preservation, i.e. restoration of cultural heritage sites to prevent their destruction. However, it is not supposed to make an exception for electronic libraries, archives and museums, which still do not have the official right to digitize such protected objects.

It is obvious that now there is a need for a clear legislative formulation of certain rights, and it is necessary to take into account the current level of development of technologies and the economy.

Indefinite limited data collection and text

The proposed exception for data and text collection (Research organizations with legitimate access to works and other protected objects are entitled to perform in-depth analysis of texts and data for research purposes.) Is applicable only where the research organization has legitimate access to the database. In addition, this item allows you to charge for data-mining, although many scientific organizations will not be able to acquire licenses for all relevant databases. This also raised the question of whether commercial data-mining could suddenly be outlawed.

It seems even more problematic to point out that having a “proper license” can block an exception for teaching activities directly (by revoking a license) or indirectly (by establishing excessive and unfair licensing conditions). The rightholders are also free to deny such access or limit its conditions. As the experience of introducing such a situation in Germany (§ 52a UrhG) shows, even professional educational institutions cannot always comply with this rule.

Even earlier studies have shown that copyright is unnecessarily restrictive for teachers, and the fragmented legal structure in Europe creates some uncertainty for them. However, the commission was unable to provide a suitable solution to this problem. In this regard, the International Public Domain Association even organized a petition to change the proposed provisions in favor of educational and cultural institutions, including museums, libraries and non-governmental organizations.

Fragmentation approach

The current legislation in the field of copyright already includes at least ten directives. These directives describe copyright in the EU in different and sometimes contradictory provisions. Instead of revising the existing structure, the commission decided to propose two additional directives and two new rules, which could lead to inconsistency and further fragmentation of legislation in this area.

Methods

The commission’s proposal is broadly consistent with the legislative procedure for consultation, impact assessment and proposed legislation, but there is no solid scientific (economic) evidence. It is not known why the commission did not decide to study the economic feasibility and possible consequences of such an innovation, because the proposed changes will lead to a completely new view of intellectual property rights, as well as have an obvious impact on the situation in the single digital market.

Related news rights

One of the controversial provisions of the bill is the additional legal protection of the online use of fragments of journalistic content. This provision can be applied to reference previews of news articles generated by news aggregators like Google News or social networks. But it can also lead to a disproportionate influence on startups in the field of news aggregation and / or monitoring of the media space.

Google has already warned that a change in legislation could be a reduction in traffic going to media sites, which will inevitably reduce media revenues from online advertising.

An example of this is already there: in 2014, Germany adopted a law obliging news aggregators to pay media publishers for content. Google suggested that the media either link to their texts for free, or exclude their sites from the news aggregator. The Axel Springer publishing house has banned the search engine from invoking articles of its media outlets - and their sites lost more than 70% of traffic. Axel Springer had no choice but to allow Google to link to texts for free.

Content monitoring

The next controversial provision of the bill is the requirement for websites to monitor user behavior to determine and prevent copyright infringement. That is, do not view the reports after the content is published, but pre-scan the data uploaded to the site in order to immediately prevent violations.

Critics point out that this increases the risk of abuse of the means of observation, and that the requirement of ensuring indiscriminate monitoring of the network activity of citizens is a disproportionate measure, and therefore violates the fundamental rights to privacy.

Conclusion

As we see, the proposed reform, in spite of the goals pursued, has a number of aspects that should be considered in more detail. Even parliamentarian Julia Reda, one of the initiators of this reform, began to struggle with some of the proposals made, which, in her opinion, could lead to additional restrictions on the rights and freedoms of network users, as well as jeopardize regional startups.