Category: Legislation and Government Regulation

"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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"Keeping Up With. . . General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)"

ACRL has released "Keeping Up With. . . General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)" by Margaret Heller.

Here's an excerpt:

Anyone who holds data must make sure their practices and tools work with GDPR. . . .Librarians have been deleting data about people for a long time. It is standard practice to delete the borrowing records for patrons when the book was returned or a fine paid. . . . But since then, the trails people leave through libraries have become easier to track as more and more reading happens online. A lot of the systems we use haven't offered the ability to delete search logs or other information about individuals, but as of right now are starting to roll out those tools to be compliant with GDPR. Some of the tools are blunt instruments: for example, Ex Libris offers the option to delete patrons from Primo entirely, but this doesn't really address issues like search logs [2].

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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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Open Access and Monographs: Where Are We Now?

The British Academy has released Open Access and Monographs: Where Are We Now?.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The Academy argues that any future model for open access monograph publication needs to be properly funded with additional money. And a generous list of exceptions will need to be defined—for example 'crossover' books which merit submission to the REF but which also make an important contribution to the UK’s 'trade' publishing industry.

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