Copyright

Copyright law needs overhaul to meet Internet needs, says EU lawmaker

Life
Image: Stockfresh

19 January 2015

European copyright laws are too fragmented and ill-suited to online usage today: Legislators drafting new rules should limit copyright terms; allow unrestricted hypertext linking; exempt public-sector works from copyright; harmonize rules to simplify cross-border commerce, and restrict the use of DRM.

That, at least is the view of Julia Reda, the European Parliament’s rapporteur for the Legal Affairs Committee, who presented a draft report on today laying out the Parliament’s agenda for the overhaul of EU copyright law. The Parliament will make recommendations to the European Commission which is drafting new copyright rules that it hopes to present later this year.

Current EU copyright laws, written in 2001, predate YouTube and Facebook, and online use of copyright material has evolved since. The 2001 laws allowed member states numerous exceptions and opt-outs. A common European copyright law is needed to safeguard fundamental rights and make it easier to offer innovative online services across the entire EU, according to Reda, who will present the report to the Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee tomorrow.

Eliminating national variations in copyright protection would help greatly in the creation of a digital single market, one of the main goals of the Commission.

The new rules should also exempt public sector works from copyright protection, and the Commission should also recognise the freedom of rightholders to voluntarily give up their rights and dedicate their works to the public domain, she wrote.

What’s more, Reda wrote in the report, limitations and access to content that is not subject to copyright or related rights protection should not be hindered by effective technological measures, also known as DRM.

DRM
Published works are copyright protected whether or not they are wrapped in DRM – but the law affords an additional layer of protection for DRM, forbidding people to break it in many circumstances. That gives content owners the means to digitally enforce restrictions above and beyond those allowed by copyright law.

Reda suggested weakening the protections afforded to DRM in certain circumstances, allowing people to break the DRM to exercise rights such as the ability to make private copies where provided for by copyright law.

She also wants companies using DRM to be required to publish either the source code or the interface specification for it and, in the circumstances where circumventing DRM is allowed under copyright law, wants tools to circumvent it made available.

Being able to freely link from one resource to another is one of the fundamental building blocks of the Internet, said Reda, calling on Commission to clarify that hyperlinking “is not subject to exclusive rights, as it is does not consist in a communication to a new public.”

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