Copyright: Open Letter calling for the deletion of Articles 11 and 13
On 29 January 2019, EDRi, along with a large stakeholder coalition consisting of 87 organisations, sent a letter to the Council’s Working Party on Intellectual Property, European Commission Vice-President Andrus Ansip and the European Parliament trilogue negotiators to ask for a deletion of the controversial Articles 11 and 13 in the Copyright Directive proposal. The letter comes in a crucial moment since the negotiations are stalled after a revised mandate for the Council failed to be adopted on 18 January.
Signatories express the view that a compromise on Article 13 seems more difficult to achieve now that, after criticism from 70 Internet luminaries, the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, civil society organisations, programmers and academics, even large parts of the creative industries are calling for a halt of negotiations on Article 13. Similar criticism has been raised about the ancillary copyright proposal in Article 11 that has lead to Google threatening to leave the EU market.
Despite two years of negotiations, European policy makers have not managed to find the right balance in the text. Thus, the letter calls to delete both Articles 11 and 13 from the proposal completely in order to allow for a swift continuation of the discussions.
Read the letter below or in pdf format here.
Open Letter calling for the deletion of Articles 11 and 13 in the copyright Directive proposal
Your Excellency Deputy Ambassador,
Dear European Commission Vice-President Andrus Ansip
Dear MEPs Voss, Adinolfi, Boutonnet, Cavada, Dzhambazki, Geringer de Oedenberg, Joulaud, Maštálka, Reda, Stihler,
We are writing you on behalf of business organisations, civil society organisations, creators, academics, universities, public libraries, research organisations and libraries, startups, software developers, EU online platforms, and Internet Service Providers.
Taking note of the failure of the Council to find a majority for a revised negotiation mandate on Friday 18 January, we want to reiterate our position that the manifest flaws in Articles 11 and 13 of the proposal for a Copyright Directive in the Digital Single Market constitute insurmountable stumbling blocks to finding a balanced compromise on the future of Copyright in the European Union. Despite more than two years of negotiations, it has not been possible for EU policy makers to take the serious concerns of industry, civil society, academics, and international observers such as the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression into account, as the premises both Articles are built on are fundamentally wrong.
In light of the deadlock of the negotiations on Articles 11 and 13, as well as taking into consideration the cautious stance of large parts of the creative industries, we ask you to delete Articles 11 and 13 from the proposal. This would allow for a swift continuation of the negotiations, while the issues that were originally intended to be addressed by Articles 11 and 13 could be tackled in more appropriate legal frameworks than this Copyright Directive.
We hope that you will take our suggestion on board when finalising the negotiations and put forward a balanced copyright review that benefits from wide stakeholder support in the European Union.
Yours sincerely,
Undersigned organisations:
Europe
1. European Digital Rights (EDRi)
2. Allied for Startups
3. Civil Liberties Union for Europe (Liberties)
4. Copyright for Creativity (C4C)
5. Create.Refresh
6. European Bureau of Library, Information and Documentation Associations (EBLIDA)
7. European Internet Services Providers Association (EuroISPA)
8. European Network for Copyright in Support of Education and Science (ENCES)
9. European University Association (EUA)
10. Ligue des Bibliothèques Européennes de Recherche – Association of European Research Libraries (LIBER)
11. Open State Foundation
12. Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition Europe (SPARC Europe)
Austria
13. epicenter.works – for digital rights
14. Digital Society
15. Initiative für Netzfreiheit (IfNf)
16. Internet Service Providers Austria (ISPA Austria)
Belgium
17. FusionDirectory
18. Opensides
19. SA&S – Samenwerkingsverband Auteursrecht & Samenleving (Partnership Copyright & Society)
Bulgaria
20. BlueLink Foundation
Czech Republic
21. Iuridicum Remedium (IuRe)
22. Seznam.cz
Denmark
23. IT-Political Association of Denmark
Estonia
24. Wikimedia Eesti
Finland
25. Electronic Frontier Finland (EFFI)
26. Finnish Federation for Communications and Teleinformatics (FiCom)
France
27. April
28. Conseil National du Logiciel Libre (CNLL)
29. NeoDiffusion
30. Renaissance Numérique
31. Uni-Deal
32. Wikimédia France
Germany
33. Bundesverband Deutsche Startups
34. Chaos Computer Club
35. Deutscher Bibliotheksverband e.V. (dbv)
36. Digitalcourage e.V.
37. Digitale Gesellschaft e.V.
38. eco – Association of the Internet Industry
39. Factory Berlin
40. Förderverein Informationstechnik und Gesellschaft (FITUG e.V.)
41. Initiative gegen ein Leistungsschutzrecht (IGEL)
42. Silicon Allee
43. Wikimedia Deutschland
Greece
44. Open Technologies Alliance – GFOSS (Greek Free Open Source Software Society)
45. Homo Digitalis
Italy
46. Hermes Center for Transparency and Digital Human Rights
47. Roma Startup
48. Associazione per la Libertà nella Comunicazione Elettronica Interattiva (ALCEI)
Luxembourg
49. Frënn vun der Ënn
Netherlands
50. Bits of Freedom (BoF)
51. Dutch Association of Public Libraries (VOB)
52. Vrijschrift
Poland
53. Centrum Cyfrowe Foundation
54. ePaństwo Foundation
55. Startup Poland
56. ZIPSEE Digital Poland
Portugal
57. Associação D3 – Defesa dos Direitos Digitais (D³)
58. Associação Nacional para o Software Livre (ANSOL)
Romania
59. APADOR-CH (Romanian Helsinki Committee)
60. Association for Technology and Internet (ApTI)
Slovakia
61. Sapie.sk
Slovenia
62. Digitas Institute
63. Forum za digitalno družbo (Digital Society Forum)
Spain
64. Asociación de Internautas
65. Grupo 17 de Marzo
66. MaadiX
67. Platform in Defence of Freedom of Information (PDL) (added on 31 January 2019)
68. Rights International Spain
69. Xnet
Sweden
70. Dataskydd.net
71. Föreningen för Digitala Fri- och Rättigheter (DFRI)
United Kingdom
72. Coalition for a Digital Economy (COADEC)
73. Open Rights Group (ORG)
International
74. Alternatif Bilişim Derneği (Alternatif Bilişim) (Turkey)
75. ARTICLE 19
76. Association for Progressive Communications (APC)
77. Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT)
78. COMMUNIA Association
79. Derechos Digitales (Latin America)
80. Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
81. Electronic Information for Libraries (EIFL)
82. Index on Censorship
83. International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA)
84. Israel Growth Forum (Israel)
85. My Private Network
86. Open Knowledge International
87. OpenMedia
88. SHARE Foundation (Serbia)
89. SumOfUs
90. World Wide Web Foundation
EDRi continues to follow the negotiations closely and calls all citizens and civil society to act and defend their digital rights through the #SaveYourInternet campaign.
Copyright: Compulsory filtering instead of obligatory filtering – a compromise? (04.09.2018)
https://edri.org/copyright-compulsory-filtering-instead-of-obligatory-filtering-a-compromise/
How the EU copyright proposal will hurt the web and Wikipedia (02.07;2018)
https://edri.org/how-the-eu-copyright-proposal-will-hurt-the-web-and-wikipedia/
EU Censorship Machine: Legislation as propaganda? (11.06.2018)
https://edri.org/eu-censorship-machine-legislation-as-propaganda/
