Germans’ last-ditch drive to derail EU copyright deal
In the final countdown to a vote on the reform, opponents
are waging a campaign to kill off one of its most controversial aspects.
By LAURA
KAYALI AND JANOSCH DELCKER 3/25/19, 9:54
PM CET Updated 3/26/19, 7:57 AM CET
BERLIN — Germany's copyright reform critics are determined
to keep battling until the last minute.
Over the weekend, tens of thousands of people took to the
streets of German cities to protest a controversial overhaul of EU copyright
rules that is due for a final vote in the European Parliament on Tuesday.
After more than two and a half years of fierce lobbying,
critics led by Green MEP Julia Reda are now pushing to change a draft law as it
goes to vote before Parliament's plenary session.
With much of the bill already locked down, opponents hope to
succeed by stripping the text of a section known as Article 13, which governs
the commercial relationship between the creative industry and platforms like
Google's YouTube.
In the final hours before the midday vote, anti-Article 13
and pro-Article 13 campaigners will continue their fight online as critics
flood social media to try to persuade European lawmakers to ditch a section
that opponents say will change the face of the internet, and which backers
argue will help to bolster the earnings of content creators and producers.
"The protests are a clear signal from young Europeans
that they don't agree with this reform" — MEP Tiemo Wölken
The last-minute battle underscores how sensitive the
copyright reform has become in Germany, where a history of authoritarian
governments has made the population sensitive to any hint of "online
censorship," and where even Chancellor Angela Merkel's governing coalition
is split over the reform.
"The protests are a clear signal from young Europeans that
they don't agree with this reform," said Tiemo Wölken, a member of the
European Parliament for Merkel's junior coalition partners, the Social
Democratic Party (SPD). "That's why I hope that many colleagues [in the
European Parliament] will finally take the protests seriously and that they
won't ignore such concerns, particularly those of young Europeans."
Wölken hopes other lawmakers will follow what amounts to an
ultimatum: Scrub the text of Article 13 or see the reform, which is the result
of thousands of hours of negotiations, rejected in its entirety.
A question of content
The problem for Wölken is that Germany's political class is
far from united on Article 13. The passage has the backing of many officials in
Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union, including the reform's
rapporteur Axel Voss and the leader of the European People's Party in the
European Parliament, Manfred Weber. (Weber, a member of the CDU's sister party,
the Christian Social Union, is running to become the next head of the European
Commission.)
Julia Reda from the Group of the Greens/European Free
Alliance who has been pushing to change the draft law | European Parliament
In Strasbourg, where a final vote on the reform is scheduled
to take place around midday Tuesday, both the European People's Party, to which
the CDU belongs, and the Socialists and Democrats group, to which the SPD
belongs, told their members to vote in favor of the reform.
But while the CDU delegation plans to do so, the SPD members
of the European Parliament have warned they will follow Wölken's lead and
reject the reform unless Article 13 disappears. More than 120 lawmakers,
including SPD members, have put forward amendments to delete Article 13 from
the text.
Article 13 makes it mandatory for companies like YouTube to
negotiate licensing agreements with rights-holders to publish their content. It
also requires platforms to make sure copyright-infringing content doesn’t
appear online, which has ignited a fiery debate in Europe's largest economy.
(Axel Springer, POLITICO Europe's co-owner, is an active participant in the
overall copyright reform debate.)
Supporters, backed by Germany's influential publishers, say
the clause is necessary to protect the rights of creative workers.
"The online platforms have spent a lot of money to
lobby against our proposal" — European Budget Commissioner Günther
Oettinger
Opponents argue that it will lead to platforms scanning
material by using content recognition technology that critics call “upload
filters.”
The fear is that such technology could also lead to the
removal of some lawful content, raising concerns in a country scarred by the
experience of two surveillance states in the 20th century — the Nazi and East
German communist regimes.
Opponents also argue that Merkel should nix Article 13
because they say her coalition agreement rules out the introduction of such
content recognition technologies.
However, supporters fire back by arguing that this would
play into the hands of U.S. tech giants including Google or Facebook, which
have objected to content recognition technologies along similar lines. (Google
and Facebook both already use such automated tools.)
"The online platforms have spent a lot of money to
lobby against our proposal," European Budget Commissioner Günther
Oettinger, a CDU member who put the copyright reform forward when he was
digital commissioner, told Bild newspaper Monday.
Uncertainty in Strasbourg
The splits between lawmakers and possibility of last-minute
reversals make it difficult to predict the outcome of Tuesday's vote,
Parliament insiders say. A pledge against the reform, initiated by digital
rights NGOs, had 133 signatories among MEPs the day before the vote. A
manifesto supporting the text, launched by Green MEP Helga Trüpel, had 102
signatories.
MEP Axel Voss reacts after the vote on copyright in the
Digital Single Market during a plenary session at the European Parliament on
September 12, 2018 | Frederick Florin/AFP via Getty Images
In some cases, the divisions fall among national lines:
French MEPs are overwhelmingly in favor of the reform. Luxembourgish
parliamentarians will all vote against.
But the fault lines sometimes run down the middle of
national and political delegations. For example, both the manifesto in support
of the text and the pledge to vote against it have signatories from MEPs within
the German Greens group.
What also makes the results hard to predict is that some
national delegations have made it clear they would not follow their political
groups' voting instructions. While the usually disciplined EPP told its members
to green-light the reform, Polish MEPs said they would vote against if Article
13 remains in the text. On the other side of the spectrum, the Dutch delegation
of the left-wing European United Left-Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) announced
Monday they would approve the text despite group opposition.
Authors:
Laura Kayali and
Janosch Delcker
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