URGENT! The Positive Reform Of Copyright Is Being Pirated In The European Parliament!

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Julia Reda, German Pirate Party MEP, has presented a report promoting a series of measures to harmonise some aspects of copyright.

La Quadrature du Net supports this report and calls on citizens to get involved to push for its vote!


Call of video creators to support the Reda Report

A large number of amendments have been tabled in the JURI committee which subvert the spirit of the report and gut it entirely of its substance.

To ensure copyright gets a chance to finally be adapted to digital uses, it is crucial we do as much as possible to ensure the report is voted as is.

The vote on this report will take place on 16 April and the discussions on the amendments on 23 and 24 March.

We call on for citizens to contact the members of the Committee on Legal Affairs of the European Parliament (JURI) by mail or by phone to support the Reda Report.

  • This report proposes to strengthen the Public Domain and the reuse of works in the Public Domain (6)1“Calls on the Commission to safeguard public domain works, which are by definition not subject to copyright protection and should therefore be able to be used and re-used without technical or contractual barriers; also calls on the Commission to recognise the freedom of rightholders to voluntarily relinquish their rights and dedicate their works to the public domain;”
  • This report wants to provide legal security for digital creative practices, notably mashups (14)2“Urges the European legislator to ensure the technological neutrality and future-compatibility of exceptions and limitations by taking due account of the effects of media convergence; considers, in particular, that the exception for quotation should expressly include audio-visual quotations in its scope; by offering a more flexible exceptions system” by offering a more flexible exceptions system3“Calls for the adoption of an open norm introducing flexibility in the interpretation of exceptions and limitations in certain special cases that do not conflict with the normal exploitation of the work and do not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the author or rightholder”
  • This report defends the right to create hypertext links without it creating any new copyright-related obligations (15)4“Stresses that the ability to freely link from one resource to another is one of the fundamental building blocks of the internet; calls on the EU legislator to make it clear that reference to works by means of a hyperlink is not subject to exclusive rights, as it does not consist in a communication to a new public
  • This report offers an harmonisation of the copyright exceptions between Member States. For example, the freedom of panorama would be recognised in France (11)5“Calls on the Commission to make mandatory all the exceptions and limitations referred to in Directive 2001/29/EC, to allow equal access to cultural diversity across borders within the internal market and to improve legal certainty”,
  • This report demands that the use of DRM be subjected to an obligation of transparency and interoperability (24)6“Recommends making legal protection against the circumvention of any effective technological measures conditional upon the publication of the source code or the interface specification, in order to secure the integrity of devices on which technological protections are employed and to ease interoperabili ty; considers, in particular, that where the circumvention of technological measures is allowed, technological means to achieve such authorised circumvention must be available”

These measures are simple, they will not hinder in any way creation and answer to needs identified by the citizens themselves in order to allow better access and sharing of culture in the digital environment7More than 10 000 answers were sent to the European Commission’ consultation on the reform of copyright in 2014, 60% of which came from end users: it is now that we must act to make the change become reality!

Show your support for the Reda Report by calling on your MEPs to reject amendments proposed by the entertainment industry!

by email

through the piphone de La Quadrature du Net

The JURI committee (committe on Legals Affairs) is one of the 22 committees of the European Parliament. Its chairman is Pavel Svoboda (PPE), the vice-chairmen are Jean-Marie Cavada (ALDE), Mady Delvaux (S&D), Lidia Joanna Geringer de Oedenberg (S&D) and Axel Voss (PPE).

The deputies who tabled the most hostile amendments on the Reda Report are:

References

References
↑1 “Calls on the Commission to safeguard public domain works, which are by definition not subject to copyright protection and should therefore be able to be used and re-used without technical or contractual barriers; also calls on the Commission to recognise the freedom of rightholders to voluntarily relinquish their rights and dedicate their works to the public domain;”
↑2 “Urges the European legislator to ensure the technological neutrality and future-compatibility of exceptions and limitations by taking due account of the effects of media convergence; considers, in particular, that the exception for quotation should expressly include audio-visual quotations in its scope; by offering a more flexible exceptions system”
↑3 “Calls for the adoption of an open norm introducing flexibility in the interpretation of exceptions and limitations in certain special cases that do not conflict with the normal exploitation of the work and do not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the author or rightholder”
↑4 “Stresses that the ability to freely link from one resource to another is one of the fundamental building blocks of the internet; calls on the EU legislator to make it clear that reference to works by means of a hyperlink is not subject to exclusive rights, as it does not consist in a communication to a new public
↑5 “Calls on the Commission to make mandatory all the exceptions and limitations referred to in Directive 2001/29/EC, to allow equal access to cultural diversity across borders within the internal market and to improve legal certainty”
↑6 “Recommends making legal protection against the circumvention of any effective technological measures conditional upon the publication of the source code or the interface specification, in order to secure the integrity of devices on which technological protections are employed and to ease interoperabili ty; considers, in particular, that where the circumvention of technological measures is allowed, technological means to achieve such authorised circumvention must be available”
↑7 More than 10 000 answers were sent to the European Commission’ consultation on the reform of copyright in 2014, 60% of which came from end users: it is now that we must act to make the change become reality!