Thursday, October 27, 2016

Copyright conundrum: Tweeting this may cost you


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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