Europe finds the square on copyright reform. At the end of a three-day negotiating marathon, the EU Parliament and Council have reached an agreement on the directive that it will have to implement copyright reform. The new directive “will protect European creativity – commented Antonio Tajani, president of the European Parliament – Musicians, actors, writers and journalists will have the right to fair remuneration even from web giants”. The EU states will have two years to incorporate it into their legislation.
The new rules require web giants such as Google, Facebook or YouTube to conclude agreements with copyright holders and to pay for material that is used on the internet. The agreement was preceded by the one between the governments of the member states, approved with Italy and seven other countries voting against.
Article 13 of the directive – the most contested at the time of the difficult vote in June and September 2018 in the European Parliament – obliges online platforms to automatically filter the material uploaded by users, removing the one covered by copyright. The compromise reached in recent days envisages exclude startups with less than 5 million unique visitors per month by certain obligations of the directive.
Positive reaction fromEnpa, the Association of Europe Newspaper Publishersi: "The agreement - reads a note - promotes a right that aims to strengthen the negotiating position of publishers and to protect them against the unauthorized digital reproduction and distribution of their publications", underlines the Enpa in a note.
Carlo Perrone, president of the Association, he hopes that the European Parliament “will ratify the text as soon as possible, in order to allow for a fair exchange between those who produce and those who distribute for their own gain, so that the cycle can continue in a convenient and fair way. Quality journalism is the foundation of our democracies and if we want there to be a future for professional journalism in the European Union we must act to support the press and rebalance an unbalanced ecosystem”.
