Last call for the European Copyright Directive as Parliament prepares to vote

By Emmanuel Legrand

On Tuesday March 26 at 12:30pm, Brussels time, members of the European Parliament will cast their vote on the Copyright Directive in the Digital Single Market, one of the most controversial and contentious piece of legislation in recent times that has been debated for over three years. The Directive will introduce a new framework for creators and content users that has the support of the former but was met with fierce opposition from the latter.

  The days prior to the vote saw last minute attempts to convince MEPs to vote one way or the other on the compromise text that came out from the trilogue process and endorsed by the Parliament's Legal Affairs committee (JURI) last month. Opponents to the legislation ramped up their campaigns online but also through demonstrations, with Article 13 on the liability of ISPs for user-generated content as their main bone of contention. They argued that under the proposed rules, online platforms would be required to sign licensing deals with rights owners to use their work online, and be at the mercy of those who they could not identify.

  "Article 13 could impact a large number of platforms, big and small, many of them European," wrote Google senior vice-president for global affairs Kent Walker in a blogpost. "Some may not be able to bear these risks."

  On March 23, thousands took it to the streets to protest against the bill, mostly in Germany, Sweden, Poland, Switzerland, Austria and Portugal, according to AFP. In Germany alone, 40 rallies took place, with 40,000 protesters in Munich and 10,000 in Berlin, according to the police, chanting 'Save our internet' and 'We are not bots'.

Dangerous experiments

  A coalition of more than 130 European companies, mostly from the tech sector, have argued in a letter to policy-makers that Article 13 was a "dangerous experiment with the core foundation of the Internet’s ecosystem." They also disagree with the intents and purposes of Article 11, which introduces a "neighbouring right" for news producers. "The text of the trilogue agreement would harm the European economy and seriously undermine the ability of European businesses to compete with big Internet giants like Google," they wrote.

  Business Insider reported that Reddit, Wikipedia, and Pornhub (!) have protested against the Directive, with Wikipedia denying access to its German, Czech, Slovakian, and Danish pages for 24 hours on March 21. Meanwhile, Reddit and Pornhub have displayed windows "asking users to lobby lawmakers in European Parliament." All three have included links to the #SaveYourInternet campaign, which has gathered over 5 million signatures. 

  Meanwhile supporters of the bill praised the Directive's attempts to fix the "value gap" and offer fair remuneration for creators. Creators from all around Europe took the lead in supporting the Directive. Europe For Creators, which regroups most organisations representing creators and creative industries, urged MEPs to vote for the legislation as a whole. "Any amendment would mean breaking the trilogue agreement, leaving no time to reconsider a new text before the European elections, and leaving European citizens, businesses and the creative sector adrift in the Digital Single Market," the group said.

  The International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC) disclosed an open letter sent to Members of the European Parliament, the European Commission and the European Council who were asked "to adopt the EU copyright directive and thus lay the foundation of a fairer environment for millions of creators worldwide."

  The letter – signed by CISAC President, electronic music pioneer Jean-Michel Jarre, and its four Vice-Presidents, singer and songwriter Angelique Kidjo (Benin), film directors Marcelo Piñeyro (Argentina) and Jia Zhang-ke (China) and visual artist Miquel Barceló (Spain) – explains that the current text of the Directive "lays down essential principles that will help creators of all repertoires achieve fairer remuneration for their works in the digital market. For the first time, it would clarify that commercial user upload platforms that make use of musical, visual, audiovisual, literary and other works are subject to copyright laws and need to be licensed by the creators of those works."

Once in a decade opportunity

  A coalition of organisations representing authors, led by the  European Composer and Songwriter Alliance (ECSA), the European Writers’ Council, the Federation of European Film Directors (FERA), and the Federation of Screenwriters Europe, urged policy-makers "to seize this once in a decade opportunity and support the successful adoption of the Copyright Directive."

  They wrote: "Abandoning the Directive now would be a major victory for the major international players who ignore the damage caused to the creative industries by their dominant position and refuse the harmonisation and inclusion of basic standards of transparency and fairness in EU copyright legislation. This Directive concerns the future of Europe’s cultures. The European Parliament played a key role in the negotiations ensuring future generations’ access to freedom of expression. Please – adopt the Directive and send a strong signal to the future generations who want to write, compose, create so that they can be fairly remunerated."

  In an op-ed titled 'The Beauty In The Beast' published by Music Week, representatives from organisations representing artists, authors, composers, music managers, independent labels and publishers wanted to debunk the "myth that this Directive is only about big corporate interests," stating that "nothing could be further from the truth." In fact, they argued, the Directive is "really about the artists and composers you haven’t heard of yet." The signatories reported that MEPs have been pressured "to sign a pledge that they will oppose Article 13 otherwise citizens will be told not to vote for them."

The art of compromise

  They also claimed that MEPs received a message entitled “Next week your biography on Wikipedia will change” with following message: “We will just see to it that anyone searching for you on Google will find out immediately if you vote for or against the freedom of the World Wide Web. They will find out when they make up their minds on 23-26 May; they will find out later in your career, whatever you do and wherever you go."

  "Is that the kind of democracy we want?," asked the signatories, which include the Council of Music Makers (CMM), Paul Pacifico, CEO of the Association of Independent Music (AIM), Alfons Karabuda, President of the European Composer and Songwriter Alliance (ECSA), Nacho Garcia Vega, President of the International Artist Organisation of Music (IAO), Per Kviman, Chair, European Music Managers Alliance (EMMA), Pierre Mossiat, President, Independent Music Publishers International Forum (IMPF) and Helen Smith, Executive Chair, Independent Music Companies Association (IMPALA).

  "The text we have on the table is the result of years of work -- thousands of hours of discussions, hundreds of amendments, numerous votes.  The final work is down to the fine art of democratic compromise... It is the beauty of the beast," they explained, concluding: "It’s time to be proud of Europe leading the way. Time to say yes to copyright reform."

  The Federation of European Film Directors (FERA), the Federation of Screenwriters in Europe (FSE) and the Society of Audiovisual Authors (SAA) called on MEPs to support Europe’s authors. "It is an important first step to ensure European audiovisual authors’ fair and proportionate remuneration. Without it, there can be no sustainable future for European audiovisual creation," they wrote.

Ensure fair remuneration

  On the eve of the vote, the three organisations released a survey on European audiovisual authors’ remuneration showing that the median earnings of a European director or screenwriter from their work as an audiovisual author was about €19,000 after tax in 2016. The Europe-wide survey also showed that younger authors earn considerably less, as do older authors, and that women authors earn significantly less than men.

  It also revealed that secondary payments for the exploitation of their works, in particular online, "are irregular and not harmonised at EU-level." For the three organisations, the results of the survey "demonstrate the urgent need for action to improve their situation." 

  Part of the solution, they claimed, was in Chapter 3 of the proposed Directive, which deals with fair remuneration for authors and performers. "[Chapter 3] was strengthened during inter-institutional negotiations, and now presents an important improvement of EU legislation that provides essential tools to re-balance this situation," they wrote.

  Meanwhile, among the main organisations representing rights holders, the IFPI still has to take a stand on the Directive...