EU countries agree on copyright reforms, final agreement expected next week, Andrus Ansip

By Sardar Hayaat MUHAMMED Khan Mandokhel 66

BRUSSELS (Sat Feb 09, 2019) – The European Union has resumed the updation process of two-decade old copyright rules to cover online platforms such as Yahoo, Google and others.

European Commission’s Vice-President for the Digital Single Market Mr. Andrus Ansip said on twitter: “Glad to see EU countries once again finding a common voice on #copyright reform. Thank you @ro2019eu for the work, and I hope for a final agreement next week. Europeans deserve copyright rules fit for digital age: it is good for creators, platforms and for regular internet users”.

Yesterday a majority of member countries agreed on a common position for talks with lawmakers next week.

Negotiations held up last month after EU countries failed to bridge their differences, among them whether small companies should be subjected to the rules, which critics blamed on lobbying by Google and others.

Sweden, Italy, Finland, Poland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Malta and Slovakia did not agree to the draft.

The EU now has to reconcile its stance with that of the European Commission and the European Parliament.

The Commission, which opened debate on the issue two years ago, has said the updation will protect Europe’s cultural heritage and level the playing field between big online companies and publishers, broadcasters and artists.

Lobbying groups including the European Newspaper Publishers Association, the European Magazine Media Association, the European Publishers Council and News Media Europe welcomed the progress but said more should be done to protect their rights.

“It would still lead to substantial legal uncertainty for press publishers as it does not protect with sufficient clarity the use of press content by news aggregators and search engines, which is the whole purpose of a right,” they said in a joint statement.

Article 11 of the proposal will force companies like Yahoo, Google, Microsoft etc to pay publishers for displaying news snippets while Article 13 aims to bound online platforms such as YouTube, Instagram to install filters to prevent users from uploading copyrighted materials, have been the most controversial.

Julia Reda the MEP from Pirate Party for her own genuine reasons is continuously critical of the compromise reached by France and Germany and is taking up the issue on several forums including her official twitter handle.  Earlier she said “Read the Franco-German Deal on #Article13, the worst version yet! All but the smallest, newest platforms would have to use #UploadFilters, ALL platforms would have to accept rightholders’ license offers, even for content they don’t want. https://juliareda.eu/2019/02/article-13-worse/ …”.

The Copyright Centre via its official twitter handle shared the quick synopsis of the Franco-German agreement on 5th Feb, 2019.

EU countries also reached consensus for next week’s negotiations with EU lawmakers and the Commission on rules known as the platform-to-business (P2B) law aimed at decreasing/limiting the powers of companies/platforms such as Yahoo, Apple Inc., Microsoft, Alphabet and others.

Announced by the Commission in April last year, the proposed legislation seeks to prevent unfair business practices by search engines, app stores, e-commerce sites and hotel booking websites in a bid to ensure a level playing field between the tech companies and traditional businesses.

EU countries also reached consensus for next week’s negotiations with EU lawmakers and the Commission on rules known as the platform-to-business (P2B) law aimed at curbing the powers of companies such as Google and Apple Inc.

Announced in April, 2018 by the Commission, the proposed legislation seeks to prevent unfair business practices by search engines, app stores, e-commerce sites and hotel booking websites in a bid to ensure a level playing field between the tech companies and traditional businesses.

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