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#ValuesGap: Commercial interests win where all others fail
A European Parliament Committee decided that filtering all uploads to the internet as a method to prevent terrorism and “the most harmful content” is unacceptable. However, the same Committee decided that the same policy is acceptable for restricting use, including legal use, of copyrighted material.
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Latest copyright votes: Filtering, blocking & half-baked compromises
On 11 July, two Committees in the European Parliament voted on their Opinions on European Commission’s proposal for a Copyright Directive: the Committee on Culture and Education (CULT) and the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE). CULT decided to abandon all reason and propose measures that contradict existing law on monitoring of online content. […]
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No, you can’t enjoy the music you paid for, says EU Parliament Committee
A leaked European Parliament document exposes some of the most bizarre suggestions yet in the debates around the proposed new copyright rules in Europe. The proposal for the Copyright Directive is currently being debated in various European Parliament Committees. The leaked document shows that conservative, socialist and Green Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) in […]
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ENDitorial: AVMSD – the “legislation without friends” Directive?
When the European Commission proposed yet another revision of the TV Without Frontiers Directive in 2016, the Directive was really showing its age. The Directive was originally launched in 1989, revised just eight years later in 1997, again ten years later in 2007, and finally only three years after that in 2010. It has become […]
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ENDitorial: Consumer protection MEPs launch attack on consumers
Documents leaked by Julia Reda, a Member the European Parliament (MEP) show that parliamentarians on the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO), whose job it is to protect consumers and improve legal consistency in the EU, are planning an assault on citizens’ fundamental rights, legal coherence and even the ultimate authority of […]
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European Parliament Culture Committee takes strong position against upload filtering
Today, 25 April 2017, the European Parliament Committee on Culture and Education (CULT) voted on the draft Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD). In a surprise move, the Committee voted to prohibit filtering of uploads by video-sharing platforms. This position, adopted by a majority of 17 to 9, will be the position of the Parliament in its […]
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The European Parliament adopts another resolution critical of the Privacy Shield
On 6 April 2017, the European Parliament (EP) voted a motion for a resolution on the adequacy of the protection afforded by the EU-US Privacy Shield. The scheme gives the United States a unique arrangement for the transfer of personal data from the European Union to the United States. The Privacy Shield replaced the Safe […]
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Open letter: direct and indirect lobbying needs to be better regulated
European Digital Rights (EDRi) and more than 100 civil society organisations joined the Alliance for Lobby Transparency and Ethics Regulation (ALTER-EU), Civil Society Europe and Transparency International EU in sending a letter on lobby transparency. The letter was sent to the key MEPs concerned with the interinstitutional negotiations to review of the EU Transparency Register. This […]
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Copyright Directive: Lead MEP partly deletes the “censorship machine”
Note: We have updated this article on 20 March 2017 eliminating mentions to the leak when it was no longer necessary and updating the number of amendments below. The rest of the analysis remains relevant and has not been modified. On 8 March, we were able to gain an insight into a leaked Draft Report […]
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Recklessly unclear Terrorism Directive creates significant risks for citizens’ security
On 16 February 2017, the European Parliament voted in favour of the EU Directive on combating terrorism. Weak, unclear, ambiguous wording in the Directive presents dangers for the rule of law, the right to privacy and freedom of opinion and expression of people in the European Union. Adopting a Directive that is unclear and wide […]
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Citizens’ rights undermined by flawed CETA deal
On 15 February 2017, the European Parliament voted in favour of the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA). This concludes the process at the EU level. The EU Member States will now have to ratify the agreement, without having a right to make changes to the text. CETA creates significant risks for citizens’ fundamental rights, especially […]
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Lead Parliamentarian for Culture Committee defends upload filtering
On 6 February 2017, the Parliamentarian in charge of the Copyright Directive for the European Parliament (EP) Committee for Culture and Education (CULT), Marc Joulaud, published his draft Opinion on the proposal for the Directive. As we described in our previous blogposts (here, here and here) the European Commission’s proposal has not fulfilled hopes for […]
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