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2018. gada 5. jūlijā Eiropas Parlamentā notiks balsojums, vai turpināt virzīt autortiesību direktīvas piedāvājumu, kas, ja tiks apstiprināts, ievērojami kaitēs interneta brīvībai.

Tā vietā, lai direktīva atjauninātu autortiesību likumus Eiropā, veicinot visu pilsoņu līdzdalību informācijas sabiedrībā, tā paredz pretējo — apdraud tiešsaistes brīvību un liedz tīmekļa piekļuvi, radot jaunus šķēršļus, filtrus un ierobežojumus. Ja priekšlikums tiks apstiprināts esošajā formā, var kļūt neiespējami dalīties ar ziņu rakstu sociālajos tīklos vai atrast to meklētājprogrammā; apdraudēta būtu arī Vikipēdija.

Pret priekšlikumu jau stingri iebilduši vairāk nekā 70 datorzinātnieki, starp tiem pasaules tīmekļa radītājs Tims Bērnerss-Lī (avots), 169 akadēmiķi un zinātnieki (avots), 147 organizācijas, kas strādā cilvēktiesību, preses brīvības, zinātniskās izpētes jomā un tehnoloģiju industrijā (avots), kā arī Wikimedia Foundation, bezpeļņas organizācija, kas cita starpā veicina šīs brīvās enciklopēdijas attīstību (šeit).

Šo iemeslu dēļ Vikipēdijas latviešu un arī citu valodu kopienas ir nolēmušas liegt pieeju visām enciklopēdijas lapām. Mēs vēlamies turpināt piedāvāt brīvu, atvērtu, kopīgi veidotu enciklopēdiju ar pārbaudāmu saturu. Mēs aicinām visus Eiropas Parlamenta deputātus balsot pret piedāvāto redakciju, no jauna atvērt diskusiju un apsvērt daudzos ieteikumus no Wikimedia organizācijām, sākot ar 11. un 13. panta izņemšanu, panorāmas brīvības ieviešanu visā ES un sabiedrības īpašumā nodoto darbu aizsardzību.

Diemžēl, Latvijas pārstāvji (atšķirībā, piemēram, no Igaunijas, Polijas, Francijas u.c. ) nav piedāvājuši šī DIREKTĪVAS tulkojumu valsts valodā, tāpēc publicējam tekstu angliski.

Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market

The Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, also known as EU Copyright Directive and file 2016/0280(COD), is a proposed European Union directive with the stated goal to harmonise aspects of copyright law in the Digital Single Market of the European Union. It is an attempt to adjust copyright law for the Internet by providing additional protection to rightsholders. The European Parliament Committee on Legal Affairsapproved the proposal on 20 June 2018, with further voting by the entire parliament required before it becomes law.

The directive's proposals include giving publishers the ability to request payment for the use of short excerpts of text, requiring for-profit websites who primarily host content posted by users to take "effective and proportionate" measures to prevent unauthorised postings of copyrighted content, and giving copyright exceptions for text and data mining by scientific research institutions. As with all EU laws, both licences and exceptions will have to be implemented on a national basis. Stephen Doughty MP in the UK also wants to see similar upload filters used to prevent "extremist material" on the Internet.

On 26 April 2018, 145 organisations from the fields of human and digital rights, media freedom, publishing, libraries, educational institutions, software developers and Internet service providers signed a letter opposing the proposed legislation. Some of those opposed include the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Creative Commons, European Digital Rights, various Open Knowledge chapters and Open Knowledge International itself, various Wikimedia chapters and as of 29 June 2018 the Wikimedia Foundation, owner of Wikipedia. Individuals who have publicly opposed the law include Tim Berners-Lee and Vint Cerf, who raise concerns regarding the costs and effectiveness of upload filters and the negative effects on free speech online. A Change.org petition opposing the directive has garnered more than 743,600 signatures as of 4 July 2018. Groups that support the directive include many publishers and media groups. This includes David Guetta, three major music labels and the Independent Music Companies Association.

History

Legislative process

The proposal was initially released on 14 September 2016 by the European Commission, which holds the legislative initiative in EU, after the European Parliament asked for such a proposal with a report of its own initiative (so called Reda Report). EU copyright reform was pushed by an EC goal in 2012 and consultation in 2013; the Juncker candidacy Kroes appeal, Oettinger confirmation and digital agenda intergroup in 2014; and EC communications in 2015.

The Council of the European Union's COREPER of 25 May 2018 approved a text which will proceed to trilogue negotiations with the European Parliament to reach a final text, without the support of Germany, Finland, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Belgium, or Hungary.

Some of its proposals, such as a link tax to be paid to publishers, and a requirement for filtering uploaded user content for copyright-infringing work, proved controversial with authors, publishers news agencies, law scholars and internet experts, cultural institutions, users and civil rights organisations, OHCHR, lawmakers and EU studies.

On 20 June 2018, the European Parliament Committee on Legal Affairs approved major changes to European copyright law, which must be confirmed by the European Parliament plenary in July 2018.

Status quo

As of November 2017 (prior to the proposed directive), copyright enforcement against innocent third-party content hosts (known as proximate intermediaries) using civil injunctions is far from satisfactory. Injunctions can be sought by copyright holders in national courts to block URLs and domains and have been criticized for lacking due process, imposing costs on unrepresented third-parties, and failing to properly weigh fundamental European human rights.

Content

The stated goals include balancing money made between authors and internet websites and improving collaboration between those who own content and online platforms.

Article 3

Article 3 proposes a copyright exception for the mining of data and text for the purposes of scientific research. The COREPER version has both a mandatory and an optional extension.

Depending on whether it acknowledges the public domain status of facts and information, article 3 could increase or decrease restrictions compared to the status quo.

Article 4

Article 4 proposes a mandatory exception for the use of copyrighted works as part of "digital and cross-border teaching activities". This article when implemented would clarify that educational establishments can make non-commercial use of copyrighted works for illustrative purposes.

There have been worries from the educational sector that the exception proposed in article 4 is too limiting. For example, the sector proposes to broaden the scope of "educational establishments" to include cultural heritage institutions. The most debated part of the article is 4(2), under which the exception would not be available if there are "adequate licenses" available in the market.

The COREPER version has changes to reflect the arguments of the education sector, but still includes the debated article 4(2).

Article 11

Article 11 extends the Copyright Directive to grant publishers direct copyright over "online use of their press publications by information society service providers". Under current EU law publishers instead rely on authors assigning copyright to them and must prove rights ownership for each individual work.

The proposal attaches several new conditions to the right, including expiry after one year and exemptions for either copying an "insubstantial" part of a work or for copying it in the course of academic or scientific research. It is derived from the ancillary copyright for press publishers which was introduced in Germany in 2013. Press publishing, "whose purpose is to inform the general public and which are periodically or regularly updated", is distinguished from academic and scientific publishing (Recital 33).

In their explanatory memorandum, the Council describe existing rights enforcement for online use of press publications as "complex and inefficient" and draw particular attention toward the use of news articles by "news aggregators or media monitoring services" for commercial purposes, and the problems faced by press publishers in licensing their work for such services.

The article is considered misconceived by scholars. A study commissioned by the European Commission, which analyzed the implementation of similar laws in Germany and Spain, found that newspapers actually benefited from the increased exposure (and in turn, ad revenue from traffic) that news aggregation platforms attracted to their online articles, noting that "the German and Spanish cases show that the law can create a right", but that "market forces have valued this right at a zero price."

Article 13

Article 13 adds additional obligations for services defined as online content sharing service providers, described as "a provider of an information society service whose main or one of the main purposes is to store and give the public access to a large amount of works or other subject-matter uploaded by its users which it organises and promotes for profit-making purposes." Such providers must work with rightsholders to receive permission to host copyrighted works uploaded by their users. Providers must take "effective and proportionate" efforts to remove and prevent the future availability of works hosted by the service without authorisation. The article makes these services liable for copyright-infringing activities by users, superseding the Electronic Commerce Directive, which granted a safe harbour to content providers who were "mere conduits". The definition of an online content sharing service provider excludes services that are storing content for non-profit online encyclopaedias, non-profit platforms for the development of open source software, and non-profit educational and scientific repositories, as well as file hosting services that allow users and/or businesses to upload files for their own use, internet service providers, and online retail marketplaces. (Article 2(5))

Article 13 has faced criticism over the possibility that it could create a chilling effect on online expression. Although the draft of the directive does not make explicit references to such an approach, it has been interpreted by critics as to require proactive filtering of uploads by websites which handle user-submitted content. Critics argued that this requirement could only be fulfilled reasonably by automated systems, such as YouTube's "Content ID", which can suffer from false positives and an inability to account for copyright limitations such as fair dealing. It has also been suggested that only major U.S. technology firms had sufficient resources to develop such filtering systems, that it would be difficult for smaller companies to comply with the requirements themselves, and outsourcing filtering to outside providers had privacy implications.

Felipe Romero-Moreno raised concerns that Article 13 could affect the functioning of social networks. Scientists also felt that Article 13 could hinder their ability to communicate. There are concerns this could affect the distribution of Internet memes and other types of remixes.

The applicability of such definitions has not been tested in the jurisprudence, and in general the article is deemed difficult to "be reconciled with the CJEU's case law on both [communication to the public] and with its case law on the E-Commerce Directive Art. 14 safe harbor".

Article 15[

Article 15 aims to allow authors to increase their remuneration in some cases where it is disproportionately low. The proposed articles 14–16, while weaker than systems existing in many member states, would improve the bargaining position of authors and performers.

Associations of authors had proposed a "rights reversion mechanism" which would allow to cancel a copyright transfer agreement proven to be disadvantageous.

Other articles

Other passages of the proposal attempt to clarify the legal status of certain common activities by libraries and of orphan works.

The amendments approved by some European Parliament committees would address issues with the public domain and freedom of panorama.

Positions

Opposition

Articles 11 and 13 of the Directive have faced widespread criticism. They are opposed by more than 200 academics from over 25 research centres, authors, journalists, publishers news agencies, law scholars, and internet experts, cultural institutions, users, civil rights organisations, OHCHR, lawmakers and EU studies demonstrating opposition to the proposals. Widely critical accounts of the proposal have been published by major newspapers in Austria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Slovakia, Sweden and UK.

On 26 April, 2018 145 organisations from the areas of human and digital rights, media freedom, publishing, libraries, educational institutions, software developers, and Internet service providers signed a letter opposing the proposed legislation. Some of those opposed include Electronic Frontier Foundation, Creative Commons, European Digital Rights, Max Planck Institute, various Wikimediachapters, and as of 29 June 2018, Wikimedia Foundation, owner of Wikipedia. The Italian Wikipedia blacked its pages for readers on 3 July, whereas the English Wikipedia added a banner asking the readers to contact their representatives in the Europarliament. Individuals who have publicly opposed the law include Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the World Wide Web, Vint Cerf, and Jimmy Wales who raise concerns regarding the costs and effectiveness of upload filters and the negative effects on free speech online. A change.orgpetition opposing the directive has more than 700,000 signatures.

A number of supporters of open science including Vanessa Proudman, European director of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, as well as the Eurodoc organisation, oppose the legislation due to what they see as its negative effect on scientific communication. These negative effects are believed to extend to ResearchGate, a repository of research articles.

Members of the European Parliament who oppose the changes include Julia Reda, Heidi Hautala, and Dan Dalton. Julia Reda describes the efforts behind the law as large media companies trying to force "platforms and search engines to use their snippets and to pay for them".[84] Parties that oppose the legislation include the European Green Party.

Supportive

The directive is supported by publishers, trade unions, major music labels, and artists. A campaign organised by European Grouping of Societies of Authors and Composers collected over 32,000 signatures from creators including David Guetta, Ennio Morricone, Jean-Michel Jarre, and the band Air. Other supporters include British author Philip Pullman (as head of the Society of Authors), the Independent Music Companies Association, and German publisher Axel Springer.

Members of the European Parliament in support include Axel Voss, who thinks criticism of the directive is exaggerated. He argued that Article 13 was designed primarily to target platforms that monetised unlicensed content, and that it had been revised to narrow its scope.

Supporters of the directive allege "scaremongering" and a "massive disinformation campaign", and cite multiple reports of spambotsflooding MEPs with so many anti-copyright emails that they can no longer carry out their work.[86] Further to content creators and publishers, they argue that licensed content providers such as Spotify and Netflix are also victims of the current copyright regime, which instead benefits user-driven platforms such as YouTube and Facebook.

Unclear

Some reports state that Google and Twitter oppose the law, while others state they support it.  A post by Google in 2016 commented on the efforts that will be required by technology companies to comply but mentioned that YouTube already had Content ID.[89] As start-upswould likely need to buy the filtering software, large technology companies such as Google may benefit. Cory Doctorow believes that large platforms will be able to negotiate deals with large publishers with negative impacts occurring mostly to smaller publishers and platforms.

Consequences of the directive on no-profit online encyclopedias

Italian Wikipedia protested against the proposal of directive by temporarily blocking the website with a banner in order to raise public awareness on this topic, arguing that the directive may even lead to the closure of Wikipedia.

Nevertheless, an article published on Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, published on July 3, 2018, argued that the directive won't affect no-profit online encyclopedias as well as all non-commercial websites. as it is written on article 2 of the proposal of directive. Thus the online encyclopedia Wikipedia should not be negatively affected by the proposal of directive.

Wikipedia in Italian, Wikipedia in Spanish and Wikipedia in Estonian were the only one among the Wikipedia encyclopedias (either national or global) which temporarily blocked their usage, since the French Wikipedia, the German Wikipedia as well as all the European and worldwide Wikipedia portals continued to provide the encyclopedia services without interruption.