Monday 02 July 2018

Rue d’Egmont 11, 1000 Brussels, Belgium

As a federation of national associations representing the more than 1 million early-career researchers across Europe, the European Council of Doctoral Candidates and Junior Researchers (Eurodoc) calls upon all Members of the European Parliament to VOTE NO on the proposal for a Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market [File 2016/0280(COD)] on 05 July 2018.

In our Eurodoc Open Letter to European Parliament on Copyright Directive, Eurodoc expresses serious concerns about Articles 3, 11, and 13 of the copyright directive, which place unwarranted restrictions on the text-and-data mining of copyrighted works, give overly extensive rights to press publishers for the online use of press content, and sweepingly oblige requests for authorisation or automatic filtering for uploading online content.

“We strongly believe that the copyright directive in its current form will not only seriously hinder the shift to Open Science but hamper research and innovation in Europe”, says Eurodoc President Gareth O'Neill. “This will lead to harmful restrictions on the fundamental rights of freedom of information as well as severely limit access to research data and publications in Europe.”

Eurodoc welcomes a copyright directive that aims to ensure wider access to content and improve copyright legislation, with a particular focus on the rights of content creators and copyright holders. The proposal for a copyright directive is, however, still not satisfactory and we ask all Members of the European Parliament to VOTE NO to give more time for serious discussion of problematic articles with all concerned stakeholders.

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Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0