The European Commission’s “Copyright Modernisation” effort has wrapped up, and it’s terrible.
All of the promising proposals mooted for a better, saner copyright for the 21st century that would protect and benefit individual creators have been thrown out, and in their place, the EC has settled on systems that will allow giant corporations more control over culture and conversation, with sweeping surveillance and censorship powers.
If you’re thinking, “Whew, I guess the UK dodged an EU bullet there, and it’ll be able to craft its own, sane copyright after Brexit,” then think again. The UK Tories are so bad on copyright, they make the European Commission look sane.
Our 3 major concerns are:
1. Not addressing the promised objective: The EC’s reform proposal starts from the outset that is more important to achieve ‘a well-functioning marketplace for copyright’, rather than creating a well-functioning legal framework for copyright that address the concerns of citizens and end-users, and enables a digital single market.2. The introduction of ‘RoboCopyright’: Ignoring any threats to users’ fundamental freedoms, the EC seems to consider algorithms by private companies should filter European citizens’ content on the Internet. (check out ‘RoboCopyright 2.0‘)
3. Blatant disregard of citizens’ voices: The EC has shrugged off the input to the consultation on the role of publishers in the copyright value chain and on the ‘panorama exception’; which gave clear indications of what Europeans wanted (results). Instead, the EC (1) proposes an EU-wide ancillary copyright lasting 20 years, and (2) ignored freedom of panorama, save for a footnote in the Impact Assessment.
[Copyright for Creativity]