The cultural and creative industry is taking up arms, a week before the plenary vote on copyright reform. While pursuing a rather traditional lobbying approach, management societies have collectively chosen to attack YouTube on its own territory. They accuse Google's subsidiary of aggressive and misleading lobbying and demand to be able to broadcast its analysis of the reform on the streaming channel.
This request, accompanied by a detailed press kit, was sent to the press on Friday 15 March. It follows YouTube's campaign, launched in late 2018, to mobilise its community in the face of "imminent danger" and turn it into an army of lobbyists. At this stage, YouTube has not responded to the invitation, confirms the European Association of Societies of Authors and Composers, which is leading the movement on behalf of the ‘Europe for Creators’ coalition (a group of professional organisations of writers, musicians, producers, actors and filmmakers).
Opponents of the reform also hit hard in early March, when US whistle-blower Edward Snowden called on his followers on Twitter to put pressure on MEPs to reject the text in the plenary vote scheduled for 26 or 27 March. His tweet referred to a brand new campaign called Pledge2019 that threatens MPs who do not vote against the reform with not being re-elected in the next election. The site, which boasts the support of nearly 5 million people (those who signed the petition launched last year on Change), identifies MEPs who have not signed up and provides their phone numbers.
Lobbying around this reform has been particularly fierce since the negotiations began in 2016. It must be said that the future directive requires platforms to conclude licensing agreements with content producers or to put in place, unless otherwise agreed, filtering measures (see EUROPE 12193/18). The future directive also creates, as is currently the case in Germany, a neighbouring right for newspaper publishers for a period of two years, which will not apply to “specific words” and “very short extracts”. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)