News about this issue has been circulating for several weeks but has just been confirmed on 10 April: the vote in Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) on reforming copyright rules has indeed been postponed till 20-21 June 2018.
It should be recalled that the draft directive presented in September 2016 introduces new copyright exceptions to the rules and sets out new provisions to ensure improved protection of protected content (see EUROPE 11624). Neither Parliament nor the Council of the EU have as yet decided on their respective positions (see EUROPE 11992).
Article 11
During the London Book Fair on 10 April, the Vice President of the European Commission, Andrus Ansip, reiterated his proposals including the one to create a neighbouring law for newspaper publishers (article 11) and make an exception to the rules on copyright in the area of text and data mining in the research field (article 3). The Vice President stated, “We propose a special right to help them negotiate licences with online services for use of their material and to enforce their rights in the digital environment”. He added that with regard to the controversial question of hyperlinks, “Our proposal does not change the scope of current copyright protection and case law, including for hyperlinking. I think this is reasonable. What is not reasonable is to take bloggers to court for hyperlinking to an article. As you know, I do not support the idea of a ‘hyperlink tax’”.
At this current juncture, the European Parliament's rapporteur is not envisaging any extension to the scope of this kind of neighbouring law in addition to publishers and press agencies. The Presidency of the Council of the EU is looking at the possibility of including an originality criterion to accompany this law (for newspaper publishers).
Article 13
With regard to the other issues, discussions are continuing at the Parliament and Council on the value gap (article 13), the other major question included in this reform and lobbying is not slackening off in this respect. A petition is currently being circulated in the background that opposes the introduction of “censorship measures” against this article and it has so far received the backing of 22,579 signatories. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)