Article 11 of the proposed EU copyright reform/expansion
Also called: “Link Tax”, Snippet Tax, Publishers’ Right, Neighbouring Right, Ancillary Copyright, Leistungsschutzrecht, Canon AEDE
Commission proposal
Anyone using snippets of journalistic online content must first get a license from the publisher. This new right for publishers would apply for 20 years after publication.
Example:
The automatic link previews social networks generate when users share links (showing the article headline, a thumbnail picture and a short excerpt) would require a license, as well as anyone analysing news content on the web like news aggregators, media monitoring services and fact checking services.
Intent:
The Commission wants to generate income for European publishers by allowing them to charge internet platforms for displaying snippets of their content to users. Stated targets are Google, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest, who use such snippets in the course of linking to news articles.
Link previews like this one would require a license.Consequences
- Likely to fail: This is an attempt to replicate at an EU level an idea that already failed badly in Germany and Spain – only applied more broadly and longer. The German law is likely about to be pronounced invalid in court, while the Spanish one “clearly had a negative impact on visibility and access to information in Spain” (EPRS). Journalists certainly never saw additional remuneration.
- Attack on the hyperlink: Because readers need to know what a link leads to before clicking, sites almost always include a snippet of the linked-to content as part of a link. Any limitation on snippets is therefore a limitation on linking.
- Limiting freedom of expression and access to information: This provision would restrict not just businesses, but also individuals who publish news snippets, e.g. bloggers. Because a neighbouring right, unlike a copyright, doesn’t require originality to apply to content, it would protect even short and uncreative snippets, such as purely factual headlines.
- Boosting fake news: Making it legally risky or expensive to link (with snippets) to news risks disincentivising the sharing of reputable news content. Since “fake news” and propaganda outlets are unlikely to charge for snippets, their content could as a result become more visible on social networks.
- News-related startups discouraged, even though this sector is in particular need of innovation and experimentation to find new business models, ways of reaching audiences, fact-checking and combating fake news etc., as technology advances.
- Small publishers disadvantaged: Aggregators create a level playing field for independent publishers with less brand recognition to reach audiences.
- In conflict with the Berne Convention, an international treaty that guarantees a right to quote news articles and create “press summaries”
Public debate
The Commission and news industry lobbies have repeatedly claimed that “individuals and hyperlinks wouldn’t be affected”, a claim unsupported by the text of the proposal:
- Links routinely include snippets, so restricting snippets restricts linking.
- While copyright exceptions would continue to apply, in many EU member states (e.g. Germany), individuals sharing news snippets without additional commentary or context are not already covered by exceptions such as the one for quotation.
- Platforms like social networks would need to deny individuals the sharing of links including unlicensed snippets, impacting directly what internet users can/can’t do.
The industry paints this as “only getting what publishers of other kinds of works already have”, e.g. music publishers. This argument neglects a major difference: While the contribution of a music publisher in turning a song composed on paper into a concrete recording is self-evident, an article as written by a journalist and its publication on a news site are hardly distinguishable, thus not requiring duplicate layers of rights.
Independent academics unanimously criticise the proposal:
- “A bad piece of legislation … would likely impede the free flow of information that is of vital importance to democracy … likely to harm journalists … likely to exacerbate existing power asymmetries in media markets … no protection against ‘fake news’ … no sound economic case for the introduction of such a right” –169 scholars working in the fields of intellectual property, internet law, human rights law and journalism studies
- “There is independent scientific consensus that Article 11 […] cannot be allowed to stand.” –Leading European centres researching IP and innovation law
- “Unnecessary, undesirable, would introduce an unacceptable level of uncertainty and be unlikely to achieve anything” –37 IP professors and scholars
- “An interference with freedom of speech”, “may well set back the function of the press as public watchdog” –Prof van Eechoud
- “Contrary to the objective of creating a Single Digital Market”, “detrimental for authors’ interests”, “a negative impact on small publishers”, “risks having undesired repercussions for the acceptability and legitimacy of the copyright system as a whole” –Uni Strasbourg
- ”Will not foster quality journalism”, ”adversely affects authors economically”, ”directly affects the online communication of the European population”, ”will not create additional revenues for press publishers” –Prof Peukert
- “will ultimately privilege large incumbent (US-based) online news providers, such as Google”, “Small (European) entities and startups will be prevented from entering this emerging market” –European Copyright Society
- “The final result … may … be further market concentration and less information diversity.” –Prof Senftleben
- “We [advise] that the press publishers’ right be abandoned” –Directorate General for Internal Policies of the Union on behalf of the European Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee
Several stakeholders who are supposed to benefit from the proposal have rejected it:
- “would be a serious blow for investigative journalism and present a giant step backward in the fight against misinformation” –Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project
- “An attack on innovation” … “unhelpful, counterproductive and not in the interest of all publishers” … “bad for competition, media pluralism and for internet users” … “Serious negative effects on the quality of the press, freedom of opinion and freedom of expression” –European Innovative Media Publishers (also here)
- “Such proposals make it harder for us to be heard, to reach new readers and new audiences. They create new barriers between us and our readers […] It will be harder for us to be present, discovered and accessed by our readers online. It will be harder for our readers to engage with our stories online, to share links or our headlines with their friends. It will be harder for us to grow, develop new sources of information and innovate in our business.” –Alliance of independent publishers, including the publishers of 900 periodicals in Spain and 155 local newspapers in Italy
- “[The plan] will stifle and drown the process of digital transformation” –Major Spanish daily El País
- “[The plan] risks […] putting all EU-based publications at a competitive disadvantage.” –71 independent publishers
- Many more quotes from industry insiders here
A coalition of open science advocates called it “a significant threat to an informed and literate society”.
The #SaveTheLink campaign run by the NGO OpenMedia collected over 12,000 responses for the Commission’s consultation on the topic and is supported by over 135,000 people online.
European Parliament
- In the (leading) Legal Affairs Committee, rapporteur Axel Voss (EPP, Germany) wants to establish the link tax as an inalienable right, meaning publishers must charge whether they want to or not. His predecessor, MEP Comodini, had proposed making it easier for publishers to enforce their copyrights rather than creating a new right, but subsequently left the Parliament. A study commissioned by the committee recommends the abandonment of the plan.
- The current spokespeople on the issue for the EPP and ALDE groups are in favour of the Commission proposal, while S&D and Greens/EFA shadows have argued for its removal.
- The Industry Committee wants to expand the proposal to also cover scientific articles (attacking open access) as well as analogue uses of publisher content.
- The Culture Committee agrees with the proposal, but seeks to carve out an exception for “legitimate uses” by “individual users acting in a private and non-commercial capacity” – but specifically not for link previews on social networks. It wants to limit the duration of protection to 8 years.
- The Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee failed to find any consensus on the proposal in its report.
Previously, the EP voted against adding this idea to the Reda Report in 2015, 83 MEPs asked the Commission to drop the plan in an open letter, and MEPs from all political groups recently joined Julia Reda’s video campaign against it.
« What other changes to copyright are planned? Back to the overview
To the extent possible under law, the creator has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this work.
censorship by any other name is still censorship.
Wouldn’t it be better to give the original publisher of an article the ability to control the content of the snippets, rather than limiting what can be repeated on other sites?
This seems more an attempt to profit financially from the advertising provided from other sites rather than limiting those sites’ ability to “steal” articles.
Should social media sites begin to charge publishers for providing coverage of their articles? Would this benefit other sources of news articles, such as Reuters and the Associated Press?
Who is considered to be the original source of an article, and how much of the article would have to be changed before it would be considered a new article rather than just an excerpt or quotation from a previously published one?
Actually it seems the case, at least by my layman’s interpretation from reading the original proposal and related directive (2001/something).
Down with the proposals for art. 11 & 13 ! No more censorship !
Not to mention that these proposals also require universal surveillance of everything you do online.
Great essential job!
I fail to understand the problem they are trying to solve with this proposal, the one publishing content is already empowered to choose the business model: paid or not paid, shareable or not shareable… this is too much bureaucracy intervention.
Its stupidity. When users or search engines use spippets, it make higher posibillity, that somebody will go through this link to this press website, and it mean for this press website profit from adds. And dont forget, that adds are biggest source of profit for press servers. I am starting writer of book. Yes, i am author, and i definitely agree to make anybody snippets of my webpage, because snippet contain pictures and some example of text on my page, and so its very good way to pay attention of potentional fans. Who will visit my page, when he didnt see even picture in link?
I say it always, i am sure, that all these copyryght protection laws make biggest harms to copyright holders alone. TV series makers are good example. They make TV series, propel them through all television channels, and after it they didnt make them available to legally download. But they still shout to youtube: block it through contentID! shout to pirate bay: remove it! and they are suprised, why so many people „steal“ their content. But their piracy is not stealing in this case. Piracy helping them to remind people their works and cannot harm them longer, until they stop use their work to generate profit. Vice versa, without piracy, their works will be forgotten, and their abilitity to get losted fans again will be definitely harmed.
Copyright holders just cant understand, that when they try withdraw their content from public, their fans absolutely not interested in reasons and even get angry, because it is very rude. Closing of game Smurfs Co a Spellbound is good example of this awful behaving (https://www.facebook.com/SmurfsSpellbound/posts/995506923805067). In this case, even lot of players paid for some things in this game. And by closing of game, their lost things, for what they paid. Its pure theft!
My long time opinion on it is: Every CONCRETE work, which his copyright holder stoped USE FOR MAKE PROFIT some year ago, should be released to public domain. There is no reason to protect any older copyrighted works, which their copyright holder dont yet use to generate profit. It can be called ABANDONED WORKS under some new copyright law, which should make pretty legal for example place on file sharing servers TV series, which are didnt officially available by copyright holder.
Copyright rights need truncation, not extention. Their actual size is bad for like for users, for copyright holders and authors too.
Even tools like the Global Internet Policy Observatory supported by the EC would be affected, as it uses snippets of text… LOL!
Hi Julia, sorry that i didnt add it to previous post, but i noticed it now, when i checked some legal, official services to sell music entirely in agreement with content copyright holder. For example i taken look at german amazon prime video (because germany have very strick copyright rules, so i was interested, how here looks market with digital products). Yes, they have good offer, they have all TV series, which i like. I noticed too option to buy it. But i was too interested in Terms. I deeply read in them, and i was absolutely disgusted! In terms is part, which tell you somethnig like: You paid it, but you didnt own it. Yes, this part you can find in 3. DIGITAL CONTENT section under: d. Availability of Purchased Digital Content.
There is some notice, that you can backup your purchased content. But you are officially able to backup (download it) only into your official Amazon app (on mobile/tablet/PC), where it is encrypted, so you can play it only in this app. If you want drag out some piece of your movie out this app in file, only way is only through rooting of your phone. And those files you still didnt play in any video player, because it have format, which recognize only this specialized amazon app. But there are many concerns, which are not very clearly defined in terms of use. So i cant from them definitely know, if limit to 15-25 downloaded tittles in one time through all your devices apply too on purchased video. But still. Even if you buy some season of TV series, it can be another day unavailable. You paid for it, but you cant download it or even watch it. Its often issue which know many people. And even if youre so lucky, that you downloaded it, there is no any warranty, that you will be abel to view it in some 30 years later.
You can try storage your amazon library program with all your purchased content for next 30 years (after closing of entire amazon) on external hard device. But one day, you connect it in your computer, and there will be error: This program is not compatible with your version of Windows. And what happen? Your 1000 of films is encrypted on your external harddisk, you cannot do with it anything, except delete it, while copyright holders still have your money. Didnt it unfair? Didnt it unfair even more, when those, who „stolen“ it from piratebay and get it absolutely free, can do with their files anything, what they want and will have acces to this content their entire life? This is simple answer, why piracy is so popular: Nobody wants pay for something, what didnt belong to him. Its like go to the shop, buy jeans, and after 10 year will seller go to you tell, that you must return them, because license with maker of them terminated, this is absurd!
When eu parliament can get directives to make stronger copyright rights, should make too directives to make position of customer bit more, than just dumb pay machine. Solution can be to require such providers like amazon and itunes to get you all content, which you purchased in regular formats (mp4, mp3, avi…) playable in all media players without any restrictions where you can copy it and where you can play it. When you purchased it, you should can really have it.
Hi,
In my opinion what is missing in this information is analysis of actual text of article in directive because currently I don’t understand how text of article 11 leads to a linktax…
That’s over here: https://juliareda.eu/2018/06/article-11-13-vote/
I agree, the concept is flawed. The media reports on the existence of an item, the action of something or someone, the believe of someone or group of people etc. The media, by pointing a finger at it, are not a participant in that observation, but only the observer, who gives a statement that they have observed it. They do not own that phenomenon, yet they want control of it and want paying for it. It is similar to how the Nazis originally burnt the books, then eventually burnt the people. Censorship in the extreme.
Ein paar Gedanken und Kommentare zum EU-Leistungsschutzrecht:
Weder das deutsche (noch das spanische) noch das europäische Recht geben es her, einen Internetanbieter zu verpflichten, das kostenpflichtige Angebot eines anderen Internetanbieters zu nutzen. Das gilt auch gegenüber den besonderen Pflichten, die Anbieter mit marktbeherrschender Stellung (Google) haben. Der ursprüngliche EU-Komissionsvorschlag wollte auch “sprechende” URLs vergütungspflichtig machen:
“This protection does not extend to acts of hyperlinking which do not constitute communication to the public.”
in der deutschen Übersetzung ” Dieser Schutz erstreckt sich nicht auf das Verknüpfen mit Hyperlinks, da dies keine öffentliche Wiedergabe darstellt.”
Diese Übersetzung ist falsch, da im englischen Original vor “which” kein Komma steht
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/de/grammatik/britisch-grammatik/relative-clauses/relative-clauses-defining-and-non-defining
Der zweite Halbsatz ist aber vom EU-Parlament gestrichen worden. Damit wäre eine Anzeige von Links in den Suchergebnissen (oder auf den Seiten von Google News) weiterhin kostenlos möglich, im Gegensatz zur derzeitigen Praxis dürfte aber nicht mehr die (komplette) Überschrift als Klartextname des Links verwendet werden. Das würde dann ersetzt durch “Zeitung X” über “Suchbegriff” bzw. bei News “Thema”. Wenn ein Verlag die verständlichen Links bei Google nicht sehen will, kann er eine eigene Linkverkürzung aufbauen und den googlebot auf diesen Zweig beschränken.
Google News ist schon jetzt kaum noch brauchbar, da ist Bing – im Gegensatz zur allgemeinen Suche – besser. Eine EInstellung des Betriebs wäre für die Nutzer kein großer Verlust, für kleine Medienhäuser schon. Wer wissen möchte, was die Medien zu einem bestimmten Thema schreiben, der wird dann bei den zwei, drei bekanntesten Organen, die seinen Vorstellungen/Präferenzen am ehesten entsprechen, nachsehen.
Eine andere Frage ist die direkte Suche. In D wird derzeit noch der Kontext der Suchbegriffe angezeigt, zusammen mit der Überschrift reicht das meist für eine halbwegs sinnvolle Vorauswahl, nach Inkrafttreten des neuen EU-Rechts wird man nur noch wissen, daß die Suchbegriffe in einem Artikel einer bestimmten Zeitung enthalten sind, man geht also i.d.R. zu einer der präferierten Publikationen. Vielleicht ist gerade das der eigentliche Grund hinter den Lobby-Bemühungen, denn eigentlich muß den Verlagen klar sein, daß sie von Google keine Lizenzgebühren für die Anzeige von Suchergebnissen bekommen werden.
Offensichtlich ist beabsichtigt – wie in Spanien, anders als in Deutschland – eine kostenlose Lizensierung auszuschließen (Einfügung des Parlaments: die Anzeige in einer Suchmaschine gilt nicht als faire Vergütung). Damit haben die kleinen Verlagshäuser keine Möglichkeit, die Suchmaschinen weiter als Besuchervermittler zu verwenden. Vielleicht läßt sich aber ein findiger Jurist eine Konstruktion einfallen, in der ein nicht als Verlag geltendes Unternehmen die Verlagsinhalte spiegelt und von den Suchmaschinen legal und kostenlos indiziert werden kann. Für die kleinen Verlage wäre das wünschenswert.
Derzeit hat Google einen Marktanteil von knapp über 90 %, Bing von 6 – 7 %, aber hinter Bing steckt Microsoft und damit ausreichend viel Geld. Wenn Google sich bei der Anzeige von Suchergebnissen aus Verlagsangeboten auf den kostenlos darstellbaren Umfang beschränkt, wird interessant sein zu sehen, ob Bing versuchen wird, durch eine lizensierte Darstellung im derzeitigen oder sogar noch etwas größeren Umfang Marktanteile zu gewinnen und größere Werbeeinnahmen zu erzielen. Wenn ja wissen wir bald, ob sich die Lizensierung für einen Suchmaschinenbetreiber rechnet. In Spanien verhält sich Bing wie Google, News ist abgeschaltet, in den Verlagsangeboten wird aber gesucht; das ist nicht genau mit der geplanten EU-Regelung zu vergleichen, da das spanische Leistungsschutzrecht nur Newsaggregatoren, nicht Suchmaschinen betrifft.
Die Behauptungen der Verleger, wieviel Werbeeinnahmen Google im Zusammenhang mit der Anzeige von Treffern auf Verlagsseiten erzielt, ist nicht ernst zu nehmen. Die Verlage argumentieren immer mit dem gesamten Werbeumsatz, schon beim Anteil an allen angezeigten Suchtreffern dürften sie bei unter 10 % liegen. Auf Google News wird überhaupt keine Werbung angezeigt, die Masse der angezeigten Werbung basiert auf Adwords, bei der Suche nach solchen Begriffen dürfte der Verlagsanteil bei den Treffern noch deutlich geringer sein. Der Anzeige von Verlagsinhalten zuzurechnen sind vermutlich weniger als 3 % der Werbeeinnahmen, auf der Kostenseite liegt der Anteil wegen der hohen Aktualisierungsrate dagegen erheblich höher.
Insgesamt erwarte ich, sollte das europäische Leistungsschutzrecht in der jetzt vom Parlament beschlossenen Fassung Wirklichkeit werden, eine Einstellung von Google und Bing News und eine Darstellung von Suchergebnissen, die im kostenlosen Rahmen bleibt. Dann wird kaum ein User auf diese Links klicken, so daß sie automatisch binnen weniger Wochen sehr weit nach hinten rutschen.
Es kann dann auch passieren, daß sich die EU-Komission relativ bald verpflichtet fühlt, mit Steuermitteln eine eigene Suchmaschine aufzubauen, die die Verleger mit Ausschüttungen beglückt.
Aus der Vorlage der Komission: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/DE/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52016PC0593&from=EN:
Eine gerechte Aufteilung der Wertschöpfung ist auch notwendig, um die Tragfähigkeit des Sektors der Presseerzeugnisse zu gewährleisten. Für Presseverlage ist es mit Schwierigkeiten verbunden, Online-Lizenzen für ihre Erzeugnisse zu erlangen und einen fairen Anteil an der von ihnen erzeugten Wertschöpfung zu erhalten. Dadurch könnte letztendlich der Zugang der Bürger zu Informationen beeinträchtigt werden. Der Vorschlag sieht ein neues Recht für Presseverlage vor, das die Online-Lizenzierung ihrer Erzeugnisse, die Amortisierung ihrer Investitionen und die Stärkung ihrer Rechte erleichtern soll.[…]
Die Einführung eines verwandten Schutzrechts für Presseverlage dürfte die Rechtssicherheit verbessern und ihre Verhandlungsposition stärken, was das angestrebte Ziel ist. Der Vorschlag entspricht dem Grundsatz der Verhältnismäßigkeit, da er nur Presseveröffentlichungen und digitale Verwendungszwecke abdeckt. Der Vorschlag wird sich auch nicht rückwirkend auf Handlungen auswirken, die vor dem Datum der Umsetzung liegen, oder auf vor diesem Datum erworbene Rechte. […]
Für die Zwecke dieser Richtlinie ist es notwendig, den Begriff der Presseveröffentlichung so zu definieren, dass er nur journalistische Veröffentlichungen umfasst, die, unabhängig vom Medium, von einem Diensteanbieter für die Zwecke der Information oder Unterhaltung veröffentlicht und in bestimmten Zeitabständen oder regelmäßig aktualisiert werden. Solche Veröffentlichungen umfassen beispielsweise Tageszeitungen oder wöchentlich oder monatlich erscheinende Magazine von allgemeinem oder besonderem Interesse sowie Nachrichtenwebsites. Periodika wie beispielsweise Wissenschaftsjournale, die für wissenschaftliche oder akademische Zwecke verlegt werden, sollten nicht unter den auf der Grundlage dieser Richtlinie gewährten Schutz für Presseveröffentlichungen fallen.
Faktisch wird die Richtlinie den Zugang der Bürger eher behindern, da Presseveröffentlichungen nicht mehr so einfach über Suchmaschinen zu finden sein werden (wenn nicht die EU eine aufbaut (s.o.).
Inwieweit es verhältnismäßig sein soll, daß der Schutz nur auf Presseerzeugnisse ausgedehnt werden soll und die auch noch so definiert werden sollen, daß wissenschaftliche Publikationen ausgeschlossen sind, erschließt sich mir nicht. Journalisten sollen gegenüber Wissenschaftlern bevorzugt behandelt werden, wie ist das mit den allgemeinen Grundsätzen der EU vereinbar?
Ebenfalls fragwürdiger Komissionsvorschlag, vom Parlament korrigiert:
Amendment 72
Proposal for a directive Article 18 – paragraph 2
Text proposed by the Commission: 2. The provisions of Article 11 shall also apply to press publications published before [the date mentioned in Article 21(1)].
Amendment by parliament: 2. The provisions of Article 11 shall also apply to press publications published before … [12 months after the date of entry into force of this directive] but only in so far as uses of works contained in press publications are made after [12 months after the date of entry into force of this directive].
Justification The application of new rights established in this Directive to uses carried out in the past would unjustly apply a new law which was not foreseeable with certainty. However the application of such new right to uses of works contained in press publications published even prior to the coming into force of this Directive but which uses are made after the coming into force of this new right is foreseeable and in accordance with law.
I’d like to share with you the article from the conversation. Why the incoming EU copyright law will undermine the free internet.
Also there is some misinformation about upload filters. Radio stations cuts profane language from rappers. Podcasters with clear messages may be crippled. Any illegal content can and will be noticed to be taken down.
filtering obligations? who benefits from this? A new kind of SPAM filtering?
Please confer this:
https://theconversation.com/why-the-incoming-eu-copyright-law-will-undermine-the-free-internet-99247
Thanks Julia, really good analysis! Specifically, in our case (www.audiobrief.news) to which extent is article 11 applying? AudioBrief.News is a startup product which collects, summarises and converts text-to-audio. The outcome is a audio playlist with summarised news based on the topics a user is interested in. We use the link, the title and sometimes a snippet (which is the summary of the news). Thank you!
Reproducing the full titles on your website, and especially converting a snippet to speech, would both absolutely appear to fall under Article 11 and require a license.
Hi, thank you for this useful information.
I think there is a typo in the bold text? I was preparing a research note and noticed Article 11 says the right would apply for “2 years” after publication, starting on the first day of January after the date of publication.