With the Bulgarian Presidency finetuning its new compromise for the Committee of the Permanent Representatives to the EU on 25 May, the European Parliament Rapporteur, Axel Voss (EPP, Germany), distributed his sixth version of his compromise amendments on the most controversial articles, namely, the neighbouring law for newspaper publishers and the value gap (see EUROPE 11992).
The paper on the value gap, seen by EUROPE, modifies the directive's scope at the margins. Therefore, the new casting excludes open source software developing platforms and does not make any reference in the list of derogations to code sharing services. The definition is further strengthened in recital 37a: the rapporteur explains that service providers that share online content are viewed under the terms of the directive, as platforms and that “one of the main purposes of which is to store and give access to the public to or stream copyright protected content uploaded / made available by its users and optimise that content”.
For all the other issues, this new casting retains the Commission's idea of encouraging the conclusion of licenses between the platforms and the rights holders (whilst explaining that the rights holders can renounce these licenses). In all cases, the platforms should take “appropriate and proportionate” measures to apply the licensing agreements and, if needs be, ensure that unauthorised content is not available.
The rapporteurs and shadow rapporteurs are expected to proceed to an exchange of views on the basis of this new text on 17 May, in view of the vote at the Committee for legal affairs on 20 or 21 June.
At the Council, the Bulgarian Presidency is planning another meeting of a Tasha is followed by a Coreper meeting on 25 May, after the inconclusive discussions on 27 April last (see EUROPE 12011). (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)