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A majority of MEPs, meeting in plenary session today in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, rejected the proposed text of the Copyright Directive in the digital single market and can no longer negotiate with the Member States . Among other things, this Directive aims to determine, for the benefit of copyright owners and related persons (musicians, videographers, filmmakers, actors and other professionals in the audiovisual industry), that digital platforms who use and disseminate content downloaded by the user & # 39; ) must implement mechanisms that prevent the loading of content whose availability is not authorized by rights holders.
318 votes against, 19659003 278 votes in favor and 31 abstentions the head of the directive. This rejection "opens the way for a vote on amendments to the text, which will be debated and put to the vote of all MEPs in plenary session from 10 to 13 September in Strasbourg", according to a statement The Committee on Legal Affairs ( Commission of the Jury), which approved the text which was rejected, announced that it would open negotiations with the European Parliament . Member States on this proposal. The changes will now be discussed during the summer and will return to the plenary of the European Parliament in September
Until now, platforms such as Google and Facebook, which serve as aggregators of content (including including videos, music or news) responsible for downloading such content, so that they are not entitled to payment of a fee – not to share with authors and publishers the payment of advertising generated by the dissemination of the content produced by them.
Thus, the text of the directive, which provoked controversy, back to back. At best, the new proposal and its amendments will be discussed again after members' holidays in September. MEPs say that they want to further discuss legislation that, for some, brings fairness to writers and publishers who must be paid to share their content and who, for others, threaten freedom of expression and the press. the end of the internet. [19659109] Reactions
The Communist MEP João Ferreira (who, at the beginning of the plenary session, called for the floor to criticize the fact that the text of the directive has not yet been translated into Portuguese, but did not see his request satisfied) and the Marisa Matias bloc voted against it. In fact, this morning, João Ferreira sent, in video, an explanation to the Portuguese authors on the position "against" in this vote. Watch the video here. This is an answer to the calls that several Portuguese musicians have addressed to deputies, as the daily Expresso reported yesterday, also through videos, asking for a "yes" to the directive. Among the artists are Carlos do Carmo, Pedro Abrunhosa and Rui Veloso. Socialist MEP Ana Gomes also diverged from some of her party colleagues and voted against
. The rapporteur of the Parliamentary Committee on Legal Affairs Axel Voss, a center-right MEP (European People's Party), said in a statement. "I regret that most MPs did not support the position of me and the parliamentary committee, but it is part of the democratic process, and we will come back to this topic in September to deepen the analysis and attempt to respond to the concerns expressed by citizens by adapting the rules of copyright in the digital age. "
Julia Reda, a German elected by the Pirate Party The German and the Green Group , states: "Our protests have worked, the European Parliament will now have the opportunity to address the concerns of over 850,000 citizens about download filters and a links that threaten the way we share content online. Parliament will now have the opportunity to update copyright rules in ways that protect authors while preserving freedom of choice. ;expression.
Media associations in Europe also began to react to "It's a dark day for democracy," says Angela Mills Wade, executive director of the Council European Publishers Association (a committee that brings together European media companies, in which the Impresa group, owner of Expresso, is the Portuguese representative). speaks of two years of "further examination" of the efforts of a group of MEPs "many of whom were not directly involved" in copyright reform, but who found themselves side by side with "powerful interests that are not directly concerned". they want to request permission to pay for the content and monetize the intellectual property rights of third parties. "
In a joint statement by several European media publishers (European Newspaper Publisher Association, European Magazine Media Association, European Publishers Council and News Media Europe):" It is unfortunate that a handful interests may use deceptive and false intimidation tactics and exaggerate (that they know to be wrong) to interfere in the democratic process. Four committees of the European Parliament have examined, clarified and approved the reform of copyright in the European Union over the past two years. Today, efforts to create a more equitable and sustainable digital ecosystem for the benefit of creators, distributors and consumers Frances Moore, executive director of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, which represents the record companies of the whole world, said: "We respect the democratic decision of Parliament … and we will work with all Members to" He adds: "When the proposal leaves Parliament after the next plenary, we look forward to working with the Austrian Presidency of the European Union to finalize a decent legislation. "
Disagreement
To understand the controversy generated around this theme, it is worth recalling its articles The 13th, called" machine of censorship ", concerns the standardization of the status of digital platforms and content aggregators, and this implies that all these must necessarily use a download filtering system that identifies content protected by copyright, posted online without permission. Thus, it will be possible to monitor and detect infringements, ensuring payment to rights holders. In the same way, these sites will have to provide a user complaints service and help tools for the rights holders of a certain work. In fact, this type of filter already exists, and it is applied by some platforms that, on their own initiative, negotiate their application with some producers – like the Spotify music service, for example.
Already Article 11 directly says the respect of news content and rights of publishers, served by the platforms that serve as news aggregators. He proposes that the journalistic content disclosed by these platforms be endowed with the "tax of the links", in order to pay more the copyright of the advertising revenues pocketed by the social networks and the news aggregators. At the same time, it allows links to journalistic articles accompanied by some sort of description to have a publication license (and this will be valid for the next 20 years).
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