EU Parliament Adopts Reda Report On Copyright Reform

The European Parliament during its last plenary meeting before the summer break today adopted a non-legislative report on copyright reform prepared by Pirate Party Member Julia Reda. The report calls for an adaptation of the EU 2001 Copyright Directive to the digital market.

The majority of the European Parliament voted in favour of a reduction of geoblocking measures, Reda noted after the vote, particularly to allow cultural minorities to access content in their language online.

It also favours enhancing portability rules that would allow users to transport content from one device to another and asks the EU legislature to consider new exceptions for libraries and scientists, for example in allowing e-lending.

The Parliament voted down a much-debated amendment that could have restricted the right to make and use panorama pictures of public monuments. Reda originally had proposed to lift restrictions on such pictures EU-wide – there are already exceptions in some countries – but the Legal Committee decided instead to make panorama pictures conditional on the permission of the right holder, at least for commercial use.

The plenary today eliminated this amendment, keeping the status quo, after half a million EU citizens signed a petition against it.

Also voted down was an amendment for an ancillary copyright for press publishers introduced by German conservative Members of Parliament who wanted to mirror what has been called the German “Google-law” on the EU level.

According to this legislation, press publishers have the right to ask for compensation for longer snippets from their news content, published by the Google news website for example.

Rapporteur Reda welcomed of the adoption of the report today, underlining that “for the first time, the Parliament demands mandatory minimum standards for user rights in copyright, which may not be restricted by technical copy protection measures or contractual terms.”

The 2001 Copyright Directive had only legislated rights for rights holders. Users on the other side could only rely on exemptions to those rights, and these were optional to decide upon for EU member states.

Reda had to accept many changes to her report – for example the elimination of a reduction of copyright protection from 70 to 50 years. She called on the Parliament to be more bold when the discussing the legislative proposal for copyright reform.

The draft proposal will be prepared by the EU Commission for the end of the year.

A Parliament press release from today is available here.

Reda also issued a press release today, available here.