The current European Commission public consultation is about ancillary copyright as well as the ‘panorama exception’. We encourage you all to show support for a strong, mandatory freedom of panorama exception in Europe and to say “no” to ancillary copyright. COMMUNIA has already submitted their feedback, and you can let your voice be heard as well. Responses to the Commission’s survey must be received by June 15, and you can check out how to answer the questions with the guide at http://youcan.fixcopyright.eu/.
Why are these issues important for you?
As we’ve written before, ancillary copyright is good for no one. Everyday Internet users and consumers of news and articles would then have a harder time finding the news and information they were looking for, and would potentially face more constraints in quoting, linking to, aggregating, or otherwise using works protected by a new ancillary right for press publishers.
Even more worrying is adopting additional rights on top of a copyright system that is fundamentally broken. This is neither contributing to the Commission’s objective of modernizing the EU copyright framework nor adapting it to the challenges of a fast-evolving digital environment. Creating new rights (which are next to impossible to retract) is not a suitable method for managing the relationship between different market segments and the public. The ancillary copyright will cause substantial collateral damage to education and access to knowledge.
Our answers to the Commission’s survey reflect the role of COMMUNIA as a non-profit organisation that defends the public domain and advocates a copyright system that benefits users, creators, educators, researchers and cultural heritage institutions.
As to freedom of panorama, we believe that public spaces are part of the commons and something we all can use and benefit from. We should all be allowed to take and share photos of public objects in public places. Without such a right, access to our shared culture will be further restricted by rights holders. If we want to champion our collective European cultural legacy, supporting freedom of panorama is a good step in the right direction.
We encourage you to read our previous articles:
- COMMUNIA response to Commission’s consultation on ancillary copyright and freedom of panorama
- Freedom of Panorama – can we be satisfied with only non-commercial use?
- Ancillary Copyright: bad for both end-users and creators
- How additional rights for publishers will hurt education and access to culture
- Ancillary Copyright, Publishers’ Right, Link Tax: a bad idea under any name
- Short videos explaining ancillary copyright and freedom of panorama
- European Commission wants feedback on ancillary copyright and freedom of panorama
Make your voice heard!
It’s important that the Commission hears from you! Be sure to submit your responses to the survey by 15 June. There’s also a helpful answering guide that can be found at http://youcan.fixcopyright.eu/.
