We would like to express our concern with regard to the lack of diversity of expert speakers and the corresponding representation of views. In the digital age, copyright impacts a great variety of stakeholders. Apart from established copyright industries and authors, it is of great relevance to citizens, consumers, cultural heritage institutions, libraries, researchers, universities and the Internet industries. It is also of fundamental importance to creators who are taking advantage of new, digital opportunities and who are not represented by traditional copyright industries.

In that context, we call on the WG to make sure that these views are appropriately represented in the upcoming meetings. Making copyright rules future-proof requires a holistic approach. This can only be achieved if the full spectrum of stakeholders is adequately represented and given a chance to speak in front of Members of Parliament who will ultimately be tasked with passing new copyright legislation.

Although the directive was meant to adapt copyright to the digital age, in reality it is blocking the exchange of knowledge and culture across borders today.

Drawing on the responses to a public consultation on the topic by the Commission in 2014 as well as scientific studies, the report calls for common European rules: "The goals set out in the [copyright] directive can be best achieved with the introduction of a Single European Copyright Title", it states, emphasising the need to “allow equal access […] across borders” to achieve the goal of a digital single market.

The report calls for the harmonization of copyright terms and exceptions across Europe, new exceptions for emerging use cases like audio-visual quotation, e-lending and text and data mining, as well as the adoption of an open norm to “allow for the adaptation to unanticipated new forms of cultural expression”. It recommends “exempting works produced by the public sector […] from copyright protection” and demands that “exercise of exceptions or limitations […] should not be hindered by technological measures”.

Calls on the Commission to harmonise the term of protection of copyright to a duration that does not exceed the current international standards set out in the Berne Convention;

Recommends that the EU legislator should further lower the barriers for re-use of public sector information by exempting works produced by the public sector -- within the political, legal and administrative process -- from copyright protection;

Calls on the Commission to make mandatory all exceptions and limitations referred to in Directive 2001/29/EC, to allow equal access to cultural diversity across borders within the internal market and to improve legal security;

Calls for the adoption of an open norm introducing flexibility in the interpretation of exceptions and limitations in certain special cases that do not conflict with the normal exploitation of the work and do not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the author or rightholder;

Stresses that the effective exercise of exceptions or limitations, and access to content that is not subject to copyright or related rights protection, should not be hindered by technological measures;

Recommends making legal protection against the circumvention of any effective technological measures conditional upon the publication of the source code or the interface specification, in order to secure the integrity of devices on which technological protections are employed and to ease interoperability; in particular, when the circumvention of technological measures is allowed, technological means to achieve such authorised circumvention must be available;

Mark’s question:

It seems like the ground is shifting in recent years regarding the perception of the value of intellectual property protection. From rhetoric vilifying “big copyright” to claims about so-called “patent trolls,” the climate for those who own and assert intellectual property has become less friendly in Washington. Why has this happened, and what can be done to fix it?

Sandra’s answer:

“. . .

The one thing that I think has truly changed and is something that we should all be worried about is that, different from 40 years ago, where I think the debates were occurring really between legitimate businesses on both sides (disruptive forces seeking to move aside, maybe move forward, in different ways than the existing industries had been moving forward), I think now there is an additional element to some of these arguments that we’re hearing against intellectual property protection.

And an element that goes a little bit further than what we’ve heard before and almost seeks the entire elimination of intellectual property protection, and that element I think is coming in its most aggressive form not from any sort of innovative sector in any business, but is coming more from the, I’ll call them “criminal elements,” cyberlockers, entities like that who support and benefit from cyberlockers, and they are not interested intellectual property in any way, and I think those of us who rely on intellectual property in our business lives are just collateral damage.

What these entities are interested in is to use our works as a lure to get eyeballs to their sites, and they’re not interested in what they’re using as a lure, they’re interested in what data they’ll be able to gather on one end (and that’s the least nefarious issue). More troubling are the sort of privacy violations, the fraud, the malware, the other scams that are perpetrated by these sites, and so I think that’s the issue we need to worry about fixing, if we’re worrying about fixing anything.”

Anybody can download a movie or a soundtrack and share it with his family in the realm of the private sphere. The downloaded movie or soundtrack cannot, however, be made public on the internet -- for example through a social media platform -- or transmitted to third persons, the [Swiss] official said.

In view of the measures proposed below... downloading from illegal sources, as provided for in current law according to the prevailing doctrine, should remain legal.

Hosting providers should remove content that has been illegally uploaded when notified to do so by the rights holder or a competent authority.

Hosting providers, whose business model is clearly designed for the infringement of copyright by users, or who intentionally promote running the risk of performing illegal acts through measures or omissions for which they are responsible, need to remove illegally uploaded content when notified to do so by the rights holder and take all reasonable measures to prevent any further illegal uploading of such content.

On the order of the authorities, access providers located in Switzerland need, in serious cases, to block access to web portals that feature obvious illegal sources by means of IP and DNS blocking. The blocking of approved content along with unapproved content (overblocking) is to be avoided, as far as possible, by the competent authorities. All blocking measures are to be made publicly known in an appropriate form by the competent authorities and they may not compromise the technical functionality of the IP or DNS system.

An overzealous enforcement of the law is problematic and is perceived as being aggressive because internet users are often unclear about the legal situation. Prior notification may remedy this. It is therefore important to create the possibility for access providers to issue a one-off notification, when notified by the rights holder or a competent authority, to owners of internet connections who seriously infringe copyright by using peer-to-peer networks. Rights owners should adequately compensate access providers for the costs incurred for delivering such notification. Upon receipt of the notification, the subscriber will then have to take appropriate steps to prevent continued use of his connection for copyright infringement via peer-to-peer networks in order to avoid facing joint civil liability in the event of recurrence. To this end, the necessary legal basis is to be established and a guarantee of judicial review is to be observed; in particular, ISPs and consumer organisations must have the possibility of appealing to the competent authority upon notification from a rights holder.