The negotiating mandate of the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU on the “copyright” directive has provoked a variety of different reactions among stakeholders. Although newspaper publishers are relatively satisfied, supporters of an open Internet are, unsurprisingly, rather disappointed. Rightsholders have provided a rather cautious response, even though one can imagine that they are rather pleased.
It should be recalled that on Friday 25 May, the Committee of Permanent Representatives to the EU (Coreper) reached an agreement on a Council negotiating mandate for the copyright directive. Four member states voted against: Belgium, Germany, Hungary and the Netherlands. During the Competitiveness Council on 28 May, Belgium explained that it would be unable to withdraw its scrutiny reservation due to the lack of a single criterion for the neighbouring law on newspaper publishers and the absence of a derogation for small and medium-sized enterprises involving measures on the value gap.
Newspaper publishers satisfied
Following this vote, several of the stakeholders responded. This first of these involved the newspaper publishers who welcomed the agreement. The European Magazine Media Association (EMMA), the European Newspaper Publishers’ Association (ENPA), the European Publishers’ Council (EPC) and News Media Europe (NME) made a joint statement indicating that “Although the original proposal from of the European Commission offers more clarity and legal certainty, the Council mandate of today is a decisive step in the right direction”.
Anger and disappointment
The Copyright4Creativity (C4C) coalition, however, - which includes the BEUC, EDRI and CCIA (which represent Facebook and Google) - was particularly disgusted and went as far as describing it as a “lethal cocktail” for European citizens, institutional actors, start-ups and big businesses (except for the rightsholders), as well as for creators that thrive in the digital environment. To summarise its reaction, it stated that “this text does not deliver in any way a digital single market; it creates an unmanageable snippet tax/link tax for the whole of the EU internet; and it mandates upload filters that will block content before it ever appears online, under the control of private companies”.
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) also expressed its disappointment and concern about the obligation to report automatically (and individually) to authors and performers on the use of their works at least once a year. "The proposed new Directive will place huge administrative burdens on the audiovisual sector. It needs to be remembered that broadcasters can be managing as many as 250,000 contracts every year with individual rightsholders”.
The work continues in Parliament
All eyes are now turned towards the European Parliament, which is gearing up to vote at the judicial affairs Parliamentary committee on 20 (Or 21) June. The dossier was also on the agenda of the shadow rapporteurs in Strasbourg on 29 and 30 May. To consult the Council's negotiating mandate please see the following link: https://bit.ly/2xpmynK . (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)