Open letters | Information democracy | Freedom of expression online

Copyright: Open Letter calling for the deletion of Articles 11 and 13

By EDRi · January 29, 2019

On 29 January 2019, EDRi, along with a large stakeholder coalition consisting of 87 organisations, sent a letter to the Council’s Working Party on Intellectual Property, European Commission Vice-President Andrus Ansip and the European Parliament trilogue negotiators to ask for a deletion of the controversial Articles 11 and 13 in the Copyright Directive proposal. The letter comes in a crucial moment since the negotiations are stalled after a revised mandate for the Council failed to be adopted on 18 January.

Signatories express the view that a compromise on Article 13 seems more difficult to achieve now that, after criticism from 70 Internet luminaries, the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, civil society organisations, programmers and academics,  even large parts of the creative industries are calling for a halt of negotiations on Article 13. Similar criticism has been raised about the ancillary copyright proposal in Article 11 that has lead to Google threatening to leave the EU market.

Despite two years of negotiations, European policy makers have not managed to find the right balance in the text. Thus, the letter calls to delete both Articles 11 and 13 from the proposal completely in order to allow for a swift continuation of the discussions.

Read the letter below or in pdf format here.


Open Letter calling for the deletion of Articles 11 and 13 in the copyright Directive proposal

Your Excellency Deputy Ambassador,
Dear European Commission Vice-President Andrus Ansip
Dear MEPs Voss, Adinolfi, Boutonnet, Cavada, Dzhambazki, Geringer de Oedenberg, Joulaud, Maštálka, Reda, Stihler,

We are writing you on behalf of business organisations, civil society organisations, creators, academics, universities, public libraries, research organisations and libraries, startups, software developers, EU online platforms, and Internet Service Providers.

Taking note of the failure of the Council to find a majority for a revised negotiation mandate on Friday 18 January, we want to reiterate our position that the manifest flaws in Articles 11 and 13 of the proposal for a Copyright Directive in the Digital Single Market constitute insurmountable stumbling blocks to finding a balanced compromise on the future of Copyright in the European Union. Despite more than two years of negotiations, it has not been possible for EU policy makers to take the serious concerns of industry, civil society, academics, and international observers such as the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression into account, as the premises both Articles are built on are fundamentally wrong.

In light of the deadlock of the negotiations on Articles 11 and 13, as well as taking into consideration the cautious stance of large parts of the creative industries, we ask you to delete Articles 11 and 13 from the proposal. This would allow for a swift continuation of the negotiations, while the issues that were originally intended to be addressed by Articles 11 and 13 could be tackled in more appropriate legal frameworks than this Copyright Directive.

We hope that you will take our suggestion on board when finalising the negotiations and put forward a balanced copyright review that benefits from wide stakeholder support in the European Union.

Yours sincerely,

Undersigned organisations:

Europe
1. European Digital Rights (EDRi)

2. Allied for Startups

3. Civil Liberties Union for Europe (Liberties)

4. Copyright for Creativity (C4C)

5. Create.Refresh

6. European Bureau of Library, Information and Documentation Associations (EBLIDA)

7. European Internet Services Providers Association (EuroISPA)

8. European Network for Copyright in Support of Education and Science (ENCES)

9. European University Association (EUA)

10. Ligue des Bibliothèques Européennes de Recherche – Association of European Research Libraries (LIBER)

11. Open State Foundation

12. Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition Europe (SPARC Europe)

Austria
13. epicenter.works – for digital rights

14. Digital Society

15. Initiative für Netzfreiheit (IfNf)

16. Internet Service Providers Austria (ISPA Austria)

Belgium
17. FusionDirectory

18. Opensides

19. SA&S – Samenwerkingsverband Auteursrecht & Samenleving (Partnership Copyright & Society)

Bulgaria
20. BlueLink Foundation

Czech Republic
21. Iuridicum Remedium (IuRe)

22. Seznam.cz

Denmark
23. IT-Political Association of Denmark

Estonia
24. Wikimedia Eesti

Finland
25. Electronic Frontier Finland (EFFI)

26. Finnish Federation for Communications and Teleinformatics (FiCom)

France
27. April

28. Conseil National du Logiciel Libre (CNLL)

29. NeoDiffusion

30. Renaissance Numérique

31. Uni-Deal

32. Wikimédia France

Germany
33. Bundesverband Deutsche Startups

34. Chaos Computer Club

35. Deutscher Bibliotheksverband e.V. (dbv)

36. Digitalcourage e.V.

37. Digitale Gesellschaft e.V.

38. eco – Association of the Internet Industry

39. Factory Berlin

40. Förderverein Informationstechnik und Gesellschaft (FITUG e.V.)

41. Initiative gegen ein Leistungsschutzrecht (IGEL)

42. Silicon Allee

43. Wikimedia Deutschland

Greece
44. Open Technologies Alliance – GFOSS (Greek Free Open Source Software Society)

45. Homo Digitalis

Italy
46. Hermes Center for Transparency and Digital Human Rights

47. Roma Startup

48. Associazione per la Libertà nella Comunicazione Elettronica Interattiva (ALCEI)

Luxembourg
49. Frënn vun der Ënn

Netherlands
50. Bits of Freedom (BoF)

51. Dutch Association of Public Libraries (VOB)

52. Vrijschrift

Poland
53. Centrum Cyfrowe Foundation

54. ePaństwo Foundation

55. Startup Poland

56. ZIPSEE Digital Poland

Portugal
57. Associação D3 – Defesa dos Direitos Digitais (D³)

58. Associação Nacional para o Software Livre (ANSOL)

Romania
59. APADOR-CH (Romanian Helsinki Committee)

60. Association for Technology and Internet (ApTI)

Slovakia
61. Sapie.sk

Slovenia
62. Digitas Institute

63. Forum za digitalno družbo (Digital Society Forum)

Spain
64. Asociación de Internautas

65. Grupo 17 de Marzo

66. MaadiX

67. Platform in Defence of Freedom of Information (PDL) (added on 31 January 2019)

68. Rights International Spain

69. Xnet

Sweden
70. Dataskydd.net

71. Föreningen för Digitala Fri- och Rättigheter (DFRI)

United Kingdom
72. Coalition for a Digital Economy (COADEC)

73. Open Rights Group (ORG)

International
74. Alternatif Bilişim Derneği (Alternatif Bilişim) (Turkey)

75. ARTICLE 19

76. Association for Progressive Communications (APC)

77. Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT)

78. COMMUNIA Association

79. Derechos Digitales (Latin America)

80. Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)

81. Electronic Information for Libraries (EIFL)

82. Index on Censorship

83. International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA)

84. Israel Growth Forum (Israel)

85. My Private Network

86. Open Knowledge International

87. OpenMedia

88. SHARE Foundation (Serbia)

89. SumOfUs

90. World Wide Web Foundation

 

EDRi continues to follow the negotiations closely and calls all citizens and civil society to act and defend their digital rights through the #SaveYourInternet campaign.

Copyright: Compulsory filtering instead of obligatory filtering – a compromise? (04.09.2018)
https://edri.org/copyright-compulsory-filtering-instead-of-obligatory-filtering-a-compromise/

How the EU copyright proposal will hurt the web and Wikipedia (02.07;2018)
https://edri.org/how-the-eu-copyright-proposal-will-hurt-the-web-and-wikipedia/

EU Censorship Machine: Legislation as propaganda? (11.06.2018)
https://edri.org/eu-censorship-machine-legislation-as-propaganda/

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