Both the Romanian Council Presidency text adopted on Friday 8 February by COREPER I and the version of the copyright Directive adopted in the European Parliament in September 2018, which will form the basis of the trilogue starting on Monday evening, 11 February at 20h CET, have been met by an increasing opposition from a wide-variety of stakeholders, both as regards Article 11 on the press publishers’ right, article 13 on upload filtering and/or even against the Directive as a whole, and this for a number of sometimes diverging reasons.

The overview below of those who have voiced their concerns can only leave one with the feeling that something must be utterly wrong with the current proposals on the table, if all these stakeholders – having had opposing views throughout the debate – start to agree on the same thing, namely: that everyone would be better off without the proposed reform. It also indicates that there is no single voice representing creators or journalists, whilst there has been a consistent and unified view expressed from the users’ side to say no to Article 11 and 13.

This should give a strong signal to policymakers that moving forward with the copyright reform in its current form is the wrong option, and that the best legacy this European Parliament could leave us would be to decide to reject the whole copyright proposal that is on the table. Alternatively, the institution representatives at the trilogue this week could simply delete Articles 11 and 13, which would go a long way into ensuring the Copyright Directive finally becomes more balanced.

Recent Positions by Stakeholders

Date Organisation(s) Resource 8 Feb, 2019 Journalists IFJ –International Federation of Journalists (representing 600.000 media professionals)

EFJ –European Federation of Journalists (representing over 320.000 journalists in 70 journalists’ organisations across 44 countries) Statement 7 Feb, 2019 Music, audiovisual, broadcasting and sports industries: ACT – Association of Commercial Television in Europe

AKTV – Czech Association of Commercial Television

DFL – German Football League

ICMP – The Global Voice of Music Publishing

IFPI – Representing the Recording Industry Worldwide

IMPALA – Independent Music Companies Association

La Liga – The Spanish Football League

Mediapro – Independent Production Company

The Premier League – The English Football League

Zwiazek Pracodawców Prywatnych Mediów – Polish Union of Private Media Employers, Lewiatan Open letter 7 Feb, 2019 The Coalition of European Innovative Media Publishers together with 25 small and medium sized publishers, media companies and digital native outlets, including: 300polityka – Poland

Association of Publishers of Periodical Publications (AEEPP) – Spain

Associazione Nazionale Stampa Online (ANSO) – Italy

Meltygroup – France

Prauda – Denmark

Dcnews & Adevarul – Romania

Journal of Ireland – Ireland Open letter 7 Feb, 2019 Audiovisual sector: AKTV – Asociace komercních televizí

APA – Asociace producentu v audiovizi

Belga Films & Home Video

EPC – European Producers Club

FAMA – Film and Music Austria

FIAD – International Federation of Film Distributors Associations

FIAPF – International Federation of Film Producers Associations

IFTA – Independent Film & Television Alliance

IVF – International Video Federation

Producentforeningen – Danish Producers’ Association

Allianz Deutscher Produzenten – Film & Fernsehen

VAP – Verein für Anti-Piraterie der Film- und Videobranche

VAUNET – German Media Association, Verband Privater Medien e. V

VOFTP – Vlaamse Onafhankelijke Film & Televisie Producenten vzw Open letter 4 Feb, 2019

Startups: Allied for Startups (representing a worldwide network of over 40 advocacy organisations in 3 continents) Statement Feb, 2019

German Media Group Bertelsmann Position paper 29 Jan, 2019

Broad community of stakeholders ranging from civil society organisations, creators, academics, universities, public libraries, research organisations and libraries, startups, software developers, business organisations, EU online platforms, to Internet Service Providers (+85 Organisations), including: European Digital Rights (EDRi)

Civil Liberties Union for Europe (Liberties)

Copyright for Creativity (C4C)

European Bureau of Library, Information and Documentation Associations (EBLIDA)

European Internet Services Providers Association (EuroISPA)

European University Association (EUA)

Ligue des Bibliothèques Européennes de Recherche – Association of European Research Libraries (LIBER)

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition Europe (SPARC Europe)

ARTICLE 19

Association for Progressive Communications (APC)

COMMUNIA Association

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)

Electronic Information for Libraries (EIFL)

Index on Censorship

International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA)

Open Knowledge International

World Wide Web Foundation Open letter 17 Jan, 2019 Consumers: European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) (representing 43 independent national consumer organisations from 32 European countries) Open letter 15 Jan, 2019

Audiovisual and sports sector, and scientific publishers: ACT – Association of Commercial Television in Europe

ANICA – Associazione Nazionale Industrie Cinematografiche Audiovisive Multimediali

AKTV – Asociace komercních televizí

ARCA – Asociatia Româna de Comunicatii Audiovizuale

CRTV – Confindustria Radio Televisioni

FAMA – Film and Music Austria

FIAPF – International Federation of Film Producers Associations

IFTA – Independent Film & Television Alliance

IVF – International Video Federation

MPA – Motion Picture Association

Premier League

STM – International Association of STM Publishers

VAP – Verein für Anti-Piraterie der Film und Videobranche

VAUNET – German Media Association, Verband Privater Medien e. V Open letter

Featured image by josemdelaa