Julia Reda

EU copyright reform plans threaten freedom of expression: Commissioner Günther Oettinger wants to make sharing even the tiniest snippets of news content subject to costly licensing, and obligate internet platforms to monitor all user uploads. We can still stop these proposals – if you join the fight now.

Two years ago, I laid out the urgent need for EU copyright reform at 31c3. Now the reform proposal is finally on the table – but Commissioner Oettinger has let big business interests hijack it. Instead of updating copyright law to better fit the digital age, he wants to try to use it to make the internet fit the established business models of analogue industry giants: • The link is under attack: Extra copyright for news sites would make most ways of sharing even 20-year-old news articles illegal without a license. Website owners, news aggregators, social networks, curation/bookmarking apps, „read later“ services, etc. would need to pay news sites for linking to with even the shortest of teaser snippets. • Internet platforms would be obligated to scan all user uploads for copyright infringements – a huge burden on community projects like Wikipedia as well as EU startups. Because robots are bad at evaluating when copyright exceptions apply, lots of legal works would be taken down. • The new copyright exception for text and data mining would restrict the freedom to do so to public institutions. Hackers and amateur scientists would be left out in the cold. • The proposals leave discriminatory geoblocking and restrictions on the freedom of panorama here to stay. We must stop these proposals from harming the internet. I’ll lay out how you can help.

After years of debate, EU copyright law is finally being revisited. The Commission will present a proposal for reform within 4 months of 31c3. And it's high time: There has never been a bigger discrepancy between the technical feasibility to share information and knowledge across all physical borders and the legal restrictions to actually do so. This talk outlines the unique opportunity and the challenge to bring copyright into the 21st century that lies in front of us. Hackers ensured that people were heard during last winter's public consultation. Can they now also ensure a progressive outcome of the reform process?

When copyright was last reformed on an EU level, YouTube and Facebook didn't exist, smartphones were unheard of. Last winter, the European Commission finally started a public consultation aimed at identifying all the ways in which the current copyright regime has been outdated by technological developments. Through projects such as Copywrongs.eu, which was developed at a workshop at 30c3, activists took it upon themselves to open the consultation to a wider audience and ensure that end users were heard. The tools they developed for that purpose, published under free licences, were even picked up by collecting societies to mobilise their members for replying to the consultation. The resulting over 9000 responses, half of which came from end users, reveal a deep divide: Individuals, cultural institutions such as libraries and scientists are calling for Europe-wide reform, whereas rightsholders are trying to defend the status quo. But the answers also point at some surprising similarities in the views of some respondents that can lead to new alliances and a copyright reform that truly finds a balance between competing societal goals. The new EU commission was tasked by their president to present a proposal for copyright reform within 4 months of 31c3. After years of debate, 2001's copyright directive is finally being revisited. Promisingly, the mandate for copyright legislation in the new Commission has been moved from a directorate concerned mostly with economic issues to the one for “Digital Society & Culture”. The last Commissioner responsible for this field, Neelie Kroes, ended her mandate with a passionate call for copyright reform, describing the current legal framework in the EU as "fragmented, inflexible, and often irrelevant". But what can we expect from the responsible Commissioner Guenter Oettinger, who's clearly not a digital native, and who has to answer to Commission Vice-President Andrus Ansip, formerly a fervent supporter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement ACTA? I'll explain what the new structure of the Commission means for copyright reform, who the players are, the expected timeline, what we may hope to achieve and how you can help ensure an ambitious, progressive and user-friendly outcome. This talk is also a call for hackers to involve themselves in traditional arenas of policy-making and to become more political in their demands and activities.