Category: Copyright

"European Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee Gives Green Light to Harmful Link Tax and Pervasive Platform Censorship"

Timothy Vollmer has published "European Parliament's Legal Affairs Committee Gives Green Light to Harmful Link Tax and Pervasive Platform Censorship" in the Creative Commons Blog.

Here's an excerpt:

Today, the European Parliament the Legal Affairs Committee voted in favor of the most harmful provisions of the proposed Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. . . .

The committee voted 13-12 in favor of Article 11, the provision known as the "link tax," which grants an additional right to press publishers requiring anyone using snippets of journalistic content to first get a license or pay a fee to the publisher for its use online. Article 11 is ill-suited to address the challenges in supporting quality journalism, and it will further decrease competition and innovation in news delivery. Similar efforts have already failed miserably in Germany and Spain.

The committee voted 15-10 in favor of Article 13, the provision that would require online platforms to monitor their users' uploads and try to prevent copyright infringement through automated filtering. Article 13 will limit freedom of expression, as the required upload filters won't be able to tell the difference between copyright infringement and permitted uses of copyrighted works under limitations and exceptions. It puts into jeopardy the sharing of video remixes, memes, parody, and code, even works that include openly licensed content.

Read more about it: "EU Takes First Step in Passing Controversial Copyright Law That Could 'Censor the Internet'," "Europe Takes Another Step towards Copyright Pre-Filters for User Generated Content," and "We Can Still Win: Next Steps for the Copyright Directive."

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"70+ Internet Luminaries Ring the Alarm on EU Copyright Filtering Proposal"

Danny O'Brien and Jeremy Malcolm have published "70+ Internet Luminaries Ring the Alarm on EU Copyright Filtering Proposal" in DeepLinks.

Here's an excerpt:

As Europe's latest copyright proposal heads to a critical vote on June 20-21, more than 70 Internet and computing luminaries have spoken out against a dangerous provision, Article 13, that would require Internet platforms to automatically filter uploaded content. The group, which includes Internet pioneer Vint Cerf, the inventor of the World Wide Web Tim Berners-Lee, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, co-founder of the Mozilla Project Mitchell Baker, Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle, cryptography expert Bruce Schneier, and net neutrality expert Tim Wu, wrote in a joint letter that was released today:

By requiring Internet platforms to perform automatic filtering all of the content that their users upload, Article 13 takes an unprecedented step towards the transformation of the Internet, from an open platform for sharing and innovation, into a tool for the automated surveillance and control of its users.

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"The EU’s Copyright Proposal is Extremely Bad News for Everyone, Even (Especially!) Wikipedia"

Cory Doctorow has published "The EU's Copyright Proposal is Extremely Bad News for Everyone, Even (Especially!) Wikipedia" in DeepLinks.

Here's an excerpt:

Under Article 13 of the proposal, sites that allow users to post text, sounds, code, still or moving images, or other copyrighted works for public consumption will have to filter all their users' submissions against a database of copyrighted works. Sites will have to pay to license the technology to match submissions to the database, and to identify near matches as well as exact ones. Sites will be required to have a process to allow rightsholders to update this list with more copyrighted works.

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"Conflicting Academic Attitudes to Copyright Are Slowing the Move to Open Access"

Francis Dodds has published "Conflicting Academic Attitudes to Copyright Are Slowing the Move to Open Access" in LSE Impact of Social Sciences.

Here's an excerpt:

Moreover, many researchers are concerned to protect the integrity of their work by restricting its potential use by others. Some studies suggest that many academics across both the sciences and humanities are opposed to commercial reuse, adaptations or inclusion of their work in anthologies (a particular aspect of humanities publishing), whilst there are mixed views about allowing data mining of their work. An example of these contrasting views is the bioRxiv site which hosts preprint papers in biology. A study of the site by Lindsay McKenzie (2017) found that over a third of authors had selected the most restrictive Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND) license, which bars commercial use and “derivative” works, including translations and annotations. Another 29% had not selected any license which, by default, reserved all rights in the work, requiring permission from the author for copying and reuse. It is noticeable that the Scholarly Communications License has been criticised by both publishers and academics as being too inflexible.

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Creative Commons: State of the Commons 2017

The Creative Commons has released State of the Commons 2017.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

People, projects, and programs make up the bulk of this year’s report, but the data also supports our vision of a more creative, open world. 1.4 billion works is 200 million more than last year, and that growth has accelerated compared to the previous two years. To provide concrete examples: The Metropolitan Museum released 375,000 pieces of content under CC0 in February 2017. PLOS counts 7,000 editorial board members and 70,000+ volunteer peer reviewers to release 200,000 pieces of content. Wikipedia, one of our closest allies and partner in the “Big Open”, hosts 42 million freely licensed pieces of content. Our search tool has responded to 1,500,000 queries, and our website has been visited 50,000,000 times. And that’s only a part of our impact.

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"Managing Copyright in Digital Collections: A Focus on Creative Commons Licences"

Caroline Korbel has published "Managing Copyright in Digital Collections: A Focus on Creative Commons Licences" in the Dalhousie Journal of Interdisciplinary Management.

Here's an excerpt:

Digital collections in public institutions can benefit from Creative Commons licenses, as they allow the responsible sharing and use of information online by faculty, students, researchers, and the public at large. This essay outlines the proper management of Creative Commons licenses in the following order: first, the current state of copyright in Canada; second, how the Creative Commons functions and its relation to free culture and Open Access; third, Creative Commons for public institution collections, and not just as a holding body, but as a repository; fourth, tools for managing Creative Commons licences online, including digital rights management (DRM) and technological protection measures (TPMs); and fifth, future impacts of the Creative Commons on digital collections. Creative Commons licences offer libraries that opportunity to expand their patronage and explore broader uses of their collections.

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"The Music Modernization Act is a Good Solution for Songwriters. Don’t Combine It with Bad Copyright Bills"

Mitch Stoltz has published "The Music Modernization Act is a Good Solution for Songwriters. Don't Combine It with Bad Copyright Bills" in DeepLinks.

Here's an excerpt:

For the first time in six years, Congress is considering serious changes to copyright law. As you might imagine, those changes are a mixed bag for the public. One bill, the Music Modernization Act, would create a new system for compensating songwriters and music publishers when their songs are played on digital services. It solves a problem recognized by nearly everyone in the music space. And while the bill has some problematic text that needs fixing, it's a good effort.

Unfortunately, the MMA has now been combined with a harmful bill, the “CLASSICS Act,” which would create a new form of pseudo-copyright for recordings from before 1972, adding on new royalties and penalties without giving anything back to the public. And other dangerous bills could get added as amendments: the “CASE Act” and the “Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act.”

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