The trilogue negotiations on the EU copyright directive on 13.12. ended, expectedly, without any results on Art.13. Negotiations are postponed until the third week of January 2019.
Ahead of the meeting, CEPIC sent out a Statement pointing out:
- It is crucial that negotiators do not lose sight of the original objective of the that is to leverage the bargaining power on-line of all rightsholders in all creative sectors. “The Directive has not been written for rightsholders in only one or two sectors which happen to have political bargaining power, but to improve the bargaining power of rightsholders across all industries. “
- It is unacceptable that at this late stage of negotiations, new concepts are introduced as compromises, concepts that were either not negotaited before or rejected in the course of negotiation
- “It is imperative that the negotiators in the Trilogue stick to their mandate which is to reconcile the three versions of the text. The Value Gap provisions have been endorsed by EU member States on 25 May 2018 and overwhelmingly by MEPs at the plenary session of Parliament on 12 September. As such, these measures should be included within the final text of the Directive with no removing and further diluting.“
The CEPIC Statement is available in the login area of the CEPIC Website.
CEPIC joined a joint letter warning the Trilogue negotiators not to dilute the Value Gap provisions any further.
The letter has been published in integrality by Musicworld here
BAPLA confirms its support of Art.13 to ensure protection of photographers and visual Artists.
This Statement has been published on their Website.
Warning to the US government
In the meantime, the CCIA – this is the trade body representing Big Tech – has published some recommendations to the US government regarding a possible EU – USA trade agreement.
“Any trade agreement between the US and the EU should ensure that copyright law is not expanded in such a way that will limit innovation to the benefits of EU rightsholders” warns the position paper. Full text is available at this LINK.
