Brussels – The Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee of the European Parliament (“IMCO“) has published its draft opinion yesterday on the proposal for a copyright directive for the Digital Single Market.
In this draft opinion, MEP Catherine Stihler has deleted the “publishers’ right”, as lacking “sufficient justification”. This decision is in line with the EU copyright evaluation report adopted by the Parliament on July 9, 2015 which rejected this measure. This decision is also supported by a recent statement from many European research centres, explaining that this right is “fundamentally misconceived and should be removed from the Proposed Directive”.
This draft opinion also amends recital 38 and article 13 on intermediary liability and filtering measures as MEP Stihler “believes that the current wording is incompatible” with the e-Commerce directive and that “the use of filtering [technologies] potentially harms the interests of users”. MEP Stihler has also introduced a UGC exception to copyright.
Finally, this draft opinion also addresses the concerns of the research community and startups by broadening the scope of the copyright exception on text and data mining.
Computer & Communications Industry Association welcomes this step in the right direction. CCIA especially supports the deletion of the publishers’ right, as this provision is both unjustified and harmful to the digital and news ecosystem – and calls for its removal in Germany and Spain as well.
CCIA urges the European Parliament and Member States to follow this first step, and to go even further by deleting entirely the provisions undermining the e-Commerce Directive, backbone of the European digital economy.
The following can be attributed to CCIA Europe Public Policy Manager Maud Sacquet:
“CCIA welcomes IMCO’s draft opinion on the copyright directive proposal. This opinion is a good first step in the right direction. CCIA urges the Parliament and Member States to follow this first step, to stand up for the deletion of the publishers’ right in the EU and to go even further by entirely deleting all provisions undermining the e-Commerce Directive”.