EU Bodies Reach Tentative Deal on Copyright Measure Requiring Platform Monitoring

Negotiators agreed on an EU copyright update. The draft, the focus of intense lobbying, would give news publishers a right covering digital use and require online content-sharing platforms get license for copyright-protected works uploaded by users, the EU Council said Wednesday. Those provisions, Articles 11 and 13 respectively, are controversial (see 1901250001). It's "a worrying version of Article 11 ... and the most negative version of Article 13," said Member of European Parliament Julia Reda, of Germany and the Greens/European Free Alliance. The compromise "goes beyond any text the Parliament has previously agreed to by including even small businesses on the controversial upload filter provision," which lawmakers' version excluded, she said. Article 13 now mirrors a French-German deal to force all for-profit sites and apps where users may share content to install upload filters, with narrow exemptions, said Reda. The agreement is a "step backward" but not the end of the road, she said: It needs final approval from governments and the European Parliament. The Computer & Communications Industry Association opposed Articles 11 and 13, and said Wednesday 11, which introduces the new right known as the "snippet tax," risks restricting the freedom of online quotation. Article 13 "weakens existing EU legal protections for Internet services," CCIA said. The draft sets mandatory exceptions to copyright for text- and data-mining, online teaching activities and preservation and online dissemination of cultural heritage; and provides for harmonized rules to make it easier to exploit out-of-commerce works, issue collective licenses, and clear rights for films by VOD platforms, the Council said. It enshrines authors' and performers' right to receive appropriate, proportionate remuneration when their rights are licensed or transferred. The European Consumer Organisation called this a "disappointing outcome for consumers" that will make it much harder for them to share their own noncommercial music, video or photo creations online: "This reform is not based on the reality of how people use the internet." The European Magazine Media Association, European Newspaper Publishers' Association, European Publishers Council and News Media Europe urged Parliament "to endorse the text, as soon as possible." In the U.S., the News Media Alliance likewise wants "swift adoption by the Council and the Parliament of the final Directive to secure the sustainability of high-quality journalism in Europe."