Copyright/Documentation/Articles/en

2017

2 October : Upload filters, copyright and magic pixie dust

Copy Buzz

Last week, the European Commission unveiled a major initiative aimed at tackling “illegal content online“. As is so often the case when politicians want to be seen to be “doing something” about terrorism, it’s full of really bad ideas.

22 September : EC Diagnosed with © 'Ostrich Syndrome': Missing Study on Piracy

Copy Buzz

German MEP Julia Reda (Greens/EFA) published a ‘new’ copyright study [PDF] from the European Commission (EC) titled “Estimating displacement rates of copyrighted content in the EU”. Yes, you’re reading the 1st paragraph correctly, an MEP published a study from the EC. If this sounds weird to you, that’s about right, and we know the feeling. So, before we dive into sharing some of the study’s findings, let’s first give you some insights on why this study is not so ‘breaking’ as one would assume, and how and why MEP Reda needed to dig it from under the sand and publish it online herself.

20 September : What the Commission found out about copyright infringement but ‘forgot’ to tell us

Julia Reda

Does copyright infringement negatively affect legal sales? This is a fundamental question with profound implications on the way copyright and copyright enforcement policy should work. In January 2014, the European Commission awarded the Dutch company Ecorys a contract worth €360.000 to conduct a study on the question.

12 September : Copyright reform: 'Neighbouring right' will get in the way of quality journalism

The Parliament Magazine

A new publishers' right would end up boosting fake news, warns Julia Reda.

6 September : International coalition joins together to halt potentially harmful copyright reform

Sparc Europe

SPARC Europe is leading and collaborating with an international coalition in an effort to halt the adoption of harmful provisions found in the current draft of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, and certain amendments, which could threaten Open Access and Open Science.

5 September : New leak: Estonian Presidency ignored doubts by 6 Member States about the legality of censorship machine plans

JuliaReda.eu

Last week we learned that the Estonian Council Presidency endorses the European Commission’s plans for censorship machines – a planned law that would force online platforms to surveil all user uploads in search of copyrighted content. Six EU member states expressed doubts about the legality of this proposal, we learn today in a new leak. Statewatch made public a list of legal questions put to the Council’s own in-house legal service by Belgium, the Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Ireland and the Netherlands. But the Estonian presidency didn’t care: They launched their proposals without waiting for the legal service to answer the questions – and without adequately addressing most of the specific concerns put forward.

2013

25 March : Online piracy ‘does not hurt the music industry’- EC study

Digital Strategy Consulting

Illegal downloading has little impact on music sales and actually drives consumers to make legal purchases, according to a new study published by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre.

7 June : Sharing is a cultural right, not a market failure

Philippe Aigrain's blog

An endless stream of law proposals, soft-law initiatives and free-trade agreements keeps trying to eradicate or prevent the non-market sharing of digital works between individuals. New strategies are pushed using incentives and threats so that intermediaries will police the Internet to save the scarcity-based business models of a few from the competition of abundance. So is it business as usual? Well, no longer.