The Commission’s wording could land social media users
in legal hot water.
Be careful if you tweet this story: It might cost you.
Under the Commission's proposal, copyright lawyers could chase down citizens for sharing sentences or snippets of articles on social media | Leon Neal/AFP via Getty Images
The European Commission created a legal minefield for
billions of internet users with a well-intentioned but poorly worded proposed
law to help struggling publishers guard against digital attrition by Google and
other news aggregators.
As people read the fine print in plans released last
month to strengthen publishers’ rights over their articles, they discovered the
Commission may have accidentally exposed tweeters, facebookers and even
LinkedIn users to the whims of the world’s most powerful media organizations.
Under the Commission’s proposal, copyright lawyers
could chase down citizens for sharing sentences or snippets of articles on
social media.
“Users would be breaking the law if they use snippets
of articles whether it is enforced or not,” said Julia Reda, a member of the
European Parliament. The law is intended to help traditional publishers survive
the digital age but, she said, “it applies to everyone, and if we pass this
legislation, it will be in the hands of the publishers to decide whether they
want to enforce it.”
After two decades of tussles between old media and
new, the Commission decided to modernize copyright laws. Its draft has become
one of the most controversial elements in creating a single market for digital
services across Europe. The introduction of a so-called neighboring right
allows publishers to seek payment from aggregators like Google and Reddit who
link to their content.
The Commission attempted to protect citizens from
overzealous publishers by excluding hyperlinks from being copyrighted. Sharing
a link is OK, but the sentences, words and even letters in a tweet or Facebook
post could be owned by publishers if the Commission’s plans go through member
countries and the European Parliament unchallenged.
The intention was to empower ideas like Project Juno,
a coalition of U.K. newspapers working together to gain greater leverage over
platforms like Google News and Yahoo News.
So-called snippets — the teasers that accompany
articles — could be the headline of an article, the first paragraph or even an
alluring quote. They are akin to trailers for new films at the cinema or clips
on YouTube.
“A neighboring right does not have an originality
test. It doesn’t matter whether the snippet reproduced can be considered an
intellectual creation, even completely banal sentences like ‘Madrid beats
Bayern München 1-0’ are protected. This is because a neighboring right does not
protect an intellectual creation, but an investment of the producer into the
production of a particular medium,” said Reda, who opposes parts of the
Commission’s plan.
It’s unlikely that publishers would exploit any gaps
in the law that expose typical tweeters, said Wout van Wijk, executive director
of News Media Europe, which represents 2,200 titles.
But the Commission’s fix does have a purpose.
“This right is likely to be enforced through licensing
agreements between publishers and commercial undertakings using the copyrighted
content,” van Wijk said.
The broader copyright measure, dubbed a “link tax” by
critics, is intended to give journalism similar legal protection to that given
to Disney when one of its movies is pirated online. Yet the wording of the
Commission’s proposal is so broad and vague that 1.6 billion Facebook users,
313 million tweeters and even 433 million LinkedIn members could be subject to
legal repercussions by publishers.
“Nobody so far can show me the passage in the law, in
the proposal, where it says private users are exempt from this regulation,”
said Till Kreutzer, director of IGEL, a lobbying group funded by companies
including Google and Yahoo.
Giuseppe Abbamonte, a director in the Commission’s
digital agenda department, believes the proposals give publishers “more edge”
and don’t endanger consumers.
The Commission concedes the new proposed rules don’t
cover snippets but believes a 2009 ruling from the European Court of Justice
provides adequate protection. The court said that extracts of 11 words or more
require the author’s permission to be reproduced. Tweets are limited to 140
characters.
The headline to this story is only seven words, so go
for it.
“The Commission has proposed an exclusive right that
leaves margin of maneuver for press publishers to negotiate different types of
agreements with online service providers wishing to use press content. This
will allow publishers to develop new business models in a flexible way,”
Commission spokeswoman Nathalie Vandystadt said.
While many publishers have digital editions and want
their articles to be shared, the proposals are little more than a life jacket.
The Commission estimates they would boost publishers’ sales by 10 percent, but
PricewaterhouseCoopers expects sales in Western Europe’s newspaper market to
decline by €8.3 billion between 2011 and 2020 — that’s about a fifth of the
industry’s combined revenues.
The Commission’s vision will be battered by the
European Parliament, where many agree there is confusion over sharing article
snippets.
Therese Comodini Cachia, a Maltese MEP who is leading
the negotiations, indicated that she’ll hold a public debate with vested
interests. “We’ve had hardly anyone who is 100 percent happy.”
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