Copyright Battle in Europe Pits Media Companies Against Tech Giants
Copyright Battle in Europe Pits Media Companies Against
Tech Giants
Publishers, music companies support the law because they
would get the right to negotiate payment for “digital use” from Facebook,
Google
By Daniel Michaels Updated Sept. 10, 2018 10:26 a.m. ET
BRUSSELS — A new European push to rein in tech giants
through copyright legislation is sparking fierce debate and questions about
whether the proposed law would accomplish its goals.
The fight pits big publishers, music companies and movie
directors against internet giants including Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s
Google, as well as open-internet advocates and some small publishers.
It is coming to a head because the European Parliament
plans to vote Wednesday on a draft copyright directive that supporters say
would bolster media producers against internet platforms and hold those
platforms more responsible for paying for content, such as copyrighted music
playing in the background of an uploaded home video.
The vote, which also will include more than 200 proposed
amendments, will set parameters for potentially protracted negotiations among
the parliament, the EU’s executive body and European governments. If a law is
ultimately agreed, EU countries would have up to two years to implement the new
rules, which would be enforced by member countries.
The proposal comes atop recently enacted EU web-privacy
legislation, known as GDPR, a $5 billion fine levied on Google’s Android mobile
operating system, and EU rules requiring search engines to remove material as
requested by individuals in certain cases.
Critics of the draft, including both technology giants
and individuals who want to maintain easy sharing on the web, contend the law
would have many negative consequences, including stifling free expression,
hampering innovation and forcing new expenses on small startups required to
filter content for copyright material.
Fighting over the law has been unusually fierce, say
veterans of EU legislative battles. Celebrities including Paul McCartney and
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales have lobbied for and against the law,
respectively. EU legislators say they’ve received hundreds of emails against
the draft text on some days.
Media companies, particularly publishers, say their
business has been gutted by Facebook and Google through their sharing of
published materials that provide little or no revenue or user data back to the
publishers. The platforms’ behavior amounts to theft, said Mathias Döpfner,
chief executive of German publisher Axel Springer SE. The new law would give
news publishers the right to negotiate payment for “digital use” of their
content by tech firms.
“If somebody else can just steal what you have created,”
he told a conference organized by German rival Hubert Burda Media in Brussels,
“then this is just a hopeless case for content creators.”
Burda CEO Paul-Bernard Kallen said the principle “is a
matter of justice.”
News Corp, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, supports
the law’s copyright protection.
A Google spokesman declined to comment on the draft law.
When it was first proposed in 2016, Google’s head of public policy said in a
blog that the draft contained “worrying elements” that could mean “everything
uploaded to the web must be cleared by lawyers before it can find an audience.”
A spokeswoman for Facebook said that its platform offers
tools for rights holders to protect their content, adding “We hope that the
debate going forward will focus on the original mission of protecting copyright
and ensuring a vibrant marketplace for content creation.”
Opponents also include Julia Reda, a member of the
European Parliament from the Pirate Party, which advocates open access and
personal privacy on the internet. She has called the copyright law a “link
tax,” warning the law could force internet users to pay for content accessed
through hyperlinks that they now get for free. In July she helped derail the
law from fast-track approval because it “would have massively restricted our
freedom of expression,” a statement on her website says.
Hyperlinks have been explicitly excluded from the law,
say advocates, meaning there would be no “link tax.”
The fight is raging even though some backers acknowledge
the law, if enacted, would face tough odds in changing how news is presented on
the internet. Similar laws in Germany and Spain had little impact and in Spain
prompted Google to stop its Google News service. Still, backers say, a law
covering the EU’s 28 countries would force platforms to change their behavior.
“Having something at the European level creates a new
dynamic,” said Angela Mills Wade, executive director of the European Publishers
Council, a trade group.
Print publishers say the law would give them rights
similar to those held by copyright owners of music and video material. “Legal
recognition gives us better legal standing against the platforms in
negotiations on usage” of published material, said Miruna Herovanu, an adviser
at News Media Europe, a trade group.
Some small publishers, individuals and academics who want
broad distribution more than revenue fear the law would restrict publication of
their materials.
Mathias Vermeulen, a spokesman for Dutch EU lawmaker
Marietje Schaake, who is critical of the law, said she received about 3,000
emails before a vote on the law earlier in the summer. He said publishers
ignored concerns of more than 200 academics about the law.
“In the end this was a very sad debate to watch,” Mr.
Vermeulen said.
—Sam Schechner and Valentina Pop contributed to this
article.
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